Bureaucracy
--Bureaucratic Structures
--Empowering/Constraining Factors
--Bureaucratic Policymaking
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Bureaucracy—Structure
• I. Constitutional Position of the Bureaucracy
• A. Created by Congress—powers of Congress over bureaucracy:
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1. Approve budgets
2. Organize
3. Confirm appointments
4. Legislative oversight
5. Legislative “veto” (Chadha v. INS, 1983)
• B. Responsible to President—powers of President over
bureaucracy:
• 1. Sets enforcement priorities (“faithful execution” of laws)
• a. Executive Orders
• 2. Presents budget to Congress
• a. “central legislative clearance”
• 3. Appoints bureaucratic leaders
• C. Therefore, bureaucracy has TWO masters
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Bureaucracy—Structure
• II. Types of Agencies
• A. Departments (“Department of…”)
• 1. Largest and most prestigious bureaucratic agencies
• 2. Structure: Pyramidal, with unitary leaders
• a. Heads of departments are members of President’s cabinet
• b. Heads are called “Secretary of…” except for Department of Justice
(called “Attorney General”)
• 3. Functions: Various, depending on the department
• a. national maintenance
• b. clientele services
• c. income redistribution
• 4. Personnel: Career civil servants, with president’s political
appointees at the top
• a. Civil servants can sometimes hinder a president’s plans
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Bureaucracy—Structure
• II. Types of Agencies (cont.)
• B. Independent Executive Agencies
• 1. Features are like departments
• 2. Key differences—more specialized mission and less prestige
(leaders are not part of the president’s cabinet)
• a. Examples: NASA, EPA, etc.
• C. Independent Regulatory Commissions
• 1. Structure: board with plural leadership
• 2. Functions: regulating the private sector
• a. Powers
• i. Rule-making
• ii. Rule adjudication
• iii. Rule enforcement (“The FCC won’t let me be…”)
• 3. Personnel: Career civil servants and fixed-term political
appointees (terms are staggered, to limit presidential influence)
• D. Government Corporations: sell services for income
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Bureaucracy—Structure
• III. Trends in the Federal Bureaucracy over time—growth
• A. Employees
• 1. Kind of…
• B. Budget
• C. Regulations
POLITICS OF BUREAUCRACY
• I. Political Character of Agency Goals:
• A. Mission Goals
• B. Survival Goals— “bureaucratic inertia”
• 1. Reagan and the Department of Education
• C. Priority of Survival over Mission Goals
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Bureaucracy—
Empowering/Constraining
• I. Factors the Empower the Bureaucracy
• A. Expertise
• 1. Principal-Agent relationship
• 2. Leads to “administrative discretion”
• B. Clientele Support
• II. Factors that Constrain the Bureaucracy
• A. Congressional Oversight
• 1. “Police Patrol”: committee hearings
• 2. “Fire Alarm”: special investigations, casework
• a. “Whistleblowers”
• B. Presidential Priorities (Obama and national defense)
• C. Competing Agencies (cellphones on planes)
• 1. Obama example
• D. Adversely Affected Interest Groups (corn, cows, and turkeys)
• E. Federal Courts
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Bureaucracy—Policy-Making
• I. Subgovernments (Iron Triangles) vs. Issue Networks
• A. Subgovernments (Iron Triangles)
• 1. Context
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a. Narrow Policy Range
b. Operational anonymity (no one is really paying attention)
c. Many, MANY subgovernments in operation
d. RESULT: no perceived losers, little conflict. Everybody gets what they
want
• 2. The Iron Triangle in Operation—Consequences
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a. Who is NOT in that picture?
b. Creates insulated pockets of policy-making
c. Shapes policy towards those who are “connected” (interest groups)
d. Obstructs comprehensive policy-making (the federal budget??)
• B. Issue Networks—more recent, updated policy-making model
• 1. More publicity, less insulation
• 2. More and competing participants
• 3. More conflictual process
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