The Bureaucracy
Chapter 14
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The Role of the Bureaucracy
• Laws effective only when government agency
enforces them.
• Agency:
– Basic organizational unit of federal government. Also
known as office or bureau.
• Department:
– Organizational unit into which many agencies of the
federal government are grouped.
• Government corporations:
– Independent organization created by Congress to fulfill
functions related to business.
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The Role of the Bureaucracy
• Administrative Discretion
– Power to interpret a legislative mandate.
– Congress can enact general rules, but cannot
anticipate every circumstance, nor can it apply
these rules to every individual case.
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The Bureaucracy Problem
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Impossibility of Tasks
Performance difficult to measure.
Awkward tendency to expand.
Slow to change.
Often mired in red tape.
Taken together these factors create what is know
as the bureaucracy problem.
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American Bureaucracies:
Particularly Political
• While most are career civil servants, top
positions belong to political appointees.
• Government more responsive to elections.
• But, it makes civil service jobs less
attractive to bright young people.
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Mountain of Patronage
• Patronage
– Jobs, contracts, or favors given to political
friends and allies.
• Spoils System
– A system of government employment in which
workers are hired on the basis of party loyalty.
– Suited the needs of political parties.
– Use the system to enlist campaign workers,
supporters and contributions.
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Advantages and Disadvantages of the Spoils System
• Positive: Helped immigrants adjust to the
realities of urban life in the U.S.
– Irish immigrants good at using politics to get
ahead.
• Negative: Contributed to the negative image
of American bureaucracies.
– View that bureaucrats are wasteful and not
credible.
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Erosion of the Spoils System
• Mugwamps
– A group of civil-service reformers organized in the 1880s who
maintained that government officials should be chosen on a merit
basis.
• Pendleton Act
– Legislation passed in 1883 creating the Civil Service Commission.
• Civil Service
– A system in which government employees are chosen according to
their educational qualifications, performance on examinations, and
work experience.
• Hatch Act
– barred federal employees from political campaigning and
solicitation.
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Political Appointees Today
• Estimated number of top-level agency appointees grew
from less than 500 in 1960 to nearly 2500 in 1998.
• Adding White House staff, the total number of highranking patronage positions is estimated close to 3000.
• No other industrialized democracy gives its leader as much
patronage power.
• Yet these appointees may not know their own
organizations very well.
• In and outers: Political appointees who com in, go out,
and come back in again with each change in
administration.
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Political Appointees Today
• Rapid changes in personnel create a government
that lacks the continuity necessary for sustained
policy focus.
• Denial of most top-level positions to nonpolitical
civil servants makes the civil service a less
attractive career for intelligent, ambitious young
people.
• Japan – civil service a sought after career.
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The President and the Bureaucracy
• President “shall take Care that the Laws be
faithfully executed.”
• President must execute the laws.
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Do so by overseeing the federal bureaucracy
Cabinet
Appoints members to independent agencies
Acts through the OMB
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The Cabinet
• Inner cabinet
– The four original departments of (State,
Defense, Treasury, and Justice) whose
secretaries, typically have the closest ties to the
president.
• Major function of the outer cabinet is to
provide interest-group access to the
executive branch of government.
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Independent Regulatory Agencies
• Independent regulatory agencies are those that
have quasi-judicial regulatory responsibilities.
• Generally headed by a several-member board or
commission appointed by the president and
confirmed by the Senate.
• Most independent regulatory agencies were
established by Congress in response to public
pressure to protect workers and consumers from
negligent or abusive business practices.
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Independent Regulatory Agencies
• Most aggressively pursued their reform
mandates.
• When public’s demand for reform fades,
who is left? Interest groups.
• Many agencies find their most interested
constituents to be members of the very
community they are expected to regulate.
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Office of Management and Budget
• OMB is an agency responsible for coordinating
the work of departments and agencies of the
executive branch.
• Once considered professionals focused on
efficiency and frugality.
• Today more political. Utilized effectively by
presidents to control other agencies.
– End runs: effort by agencies to avoid OMB controls by
appealing to allies in Congress.
– Congressional Budget Office created by Congress in
1974 to check the OMB’s growing power.
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Congress and the Bureaucracy
• Agencies have many bosses in Congress.
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Senate confirmation
Agency reorganization
Legislative detail
Budgetary control
Legislative oversight
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Iron Triangles and Issue Networks
• Iron triangles
– Close, stable connection among agencies,
interest groups and congressional committees.
• Issue networks
– Loose, competitive relationships among policy
experts, interest groups, congressional
committees and government agencies.
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Elections and the Bureaucracy
• Reformers have tried to separate politics
from the bureaucracy.
• Agency autonomy has kept some less
politically charged.
• Electoral pressures have also played a
positive role.
– May force them to balance competing interests
by striking compromises.
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Bureaucratic Secrecy
• Inside knowledge is power.
• Secrecy can cover mistakes.
• Electoral pressures have curtailed the
amount of secrecy in American government.
• Sunshine law
– A 1976 law requiring that federal government
meetings be held in public.
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Bureaucratic Coercion
• Do bureaucracies abuse their powers?
• Example: IRS
• Agencies are held accountable by the public and
by Congress.
• Congressional oversight.
• If bureaucratic agencies make life difficult for the
voting public, these agencies are more likely to be
taken to task by elected officials.
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Agency Expansion
• Agencies generally try to expand.
• Congress may limit such expansion due to cost.
• Bush administration has forced some bureaucrats
to compete with private companies for their jobs.
– Has generated some protest.
– Believed they were already under-funded and
understaffed and not able to compete for these reasons.
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Administrator Caution
• Most federal agencies are more
likely to err on the side of
caution.
• Afraid of making a major
mistake that gains it too much
attention.
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Compromised Capacity
• Agencies’ effectiveness may be
limited by the compromise nature
of the legislation they are supposed
to enforce.
• Ex: politics of charter schools
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Muddling Through
• Do not perform as badly as we think.
• Actual experiences of clients has been far
better than their expectations.
• Internet has had a positive impact.
• B- grade overall
• Must muddle through when so many
interests must be balanced.
• Ex: Forest Service
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