I. Distinctiveness of the United States
Bureaucracy-size, scope, and political context
The Constitutional system and traditions make the
US bureaucracy distinctive.
-political authority over the bureaucracy is shared
by the president and congress
-federal agencies share functions with related state
and local government agencies.
-adversary culture leads to closer scrutiny and
make court challenges more likely
The Appointment of Officials
-Officials affect how laws are interpreted, tone and
effectiveness of administration, and party strength
-Patronage in the 19th and early 20th centuries
rewarded party supporters, induced congressional
support, and built party organizations
-Civil War beginning of bureaucratic growth, it
pointed out the administrative weakness of the
federal govt. and increased the demands for civil
service reform
-Post-Civil War begins industrialization, becomes
necessary to regulate interstate tradecontroversial
The Change in Role
1861-1901 new agencies performed mainly a service
role due to:
-constraints of limited govt., states’ rights, and limited power
-laissez fare policies
-Supreme Court held that executive agencies could only apply
statutes passed by Congress
-Wars led to reduced restrictions on administrators and an
enduring increase in executive branch personnel
Depression and WWII lead to government activism
-Supreme Court reverses position and upheld laws that granted
discretion to administrative agencies
-introduction of income taxes supports a larger bureaucracy16th amendment - 1913
-public believes in need for military preparedness and social
programs
III. The Federal Bureaucracy Today
Direct and indirect growth:
-modest increase in number of direct government
employees
-significant increase in the number of employees
through use of private contractors, state and local
government employees
Growth in discretionary authority
Defined as-the ability to choose courses of action
and make policies not set out in the statutory law
-Delegation of undefined authority greatly
increased
Recruitment and Retention
A.The Competitive service: bureaucrats
compete for jobs through OPM:
-Appointment by merit based on written exam
-1900- less than 15%
1952-86%
1996-54%
Departments are moving away from OPM due to:
-OPM is cumbersome and not geared towards
individual department needs
-agencies have need of professionals who cannot
be ranked by an examination- particular skill set
-agencies face pressure to diversify
B. The excepted service: 46% today
- Those employees hired outside the OPM
-Only about 3 % of employees are appointed on
grounds other than merit- presidential
appointments, Schedule C jobs, and non-career
executive assignments
-Pendleton Act (1883)- changed the basis of
government jobs from patronage to merit
-Merit system protects president from pressure
and protects patronage appointees from removal
by new presidents
Why make it difficult to fire a bureaucrat?
Positives
-Agencies are dominated by lifetime bureaucrats
who have worked for no other agency
-assures continuity and expertise
Negatives:
-gives subordinates power over new bosses
-workers know how to work behind their boss’s
back through sabotage and delay methods
So who are the bureaucrats?
Critics say that political appointees and upperlevel bureaucrats are unrepresentative of the US
society and believe that they work in their own
occupational self interest
Reality
-bureaucrats are somewhat more liberal or
conservative, depending on the appointing
president
-they do not take extreme positions
-correlation between the type of agency and the
attitude of the employee
Example-activist agency tends to attract more
liberal employees- Policy views reflect the type
of work they do
Do bureaucrats sabotage their bosses?
-most carry out policy regardless of personal
beliefs
-most have highly structured jobs
-each agency has its own culture, an informal
understanding among employees about how
they are supposed to act
-strong agency culture motivates employees,
but it makes agencies resistant to change
Constraints on the bureaucracy
-constraints much higher than on private business
-hiring, firing, pay, and other procedures
established by law, not by the market
General Constraints:
-Administrative Procedure Act-1946
-Freedom of Information Act- 1966
National Environmental Policy Act -1969
Privacy Act- 1974
Open Meeting Law-1976
Effects of Constraints
- government moves slowly
-government sometimes acts inconsistently
-easier to block action than to take action
-reluctant decision making by lower ranking
employees
-red tape
Why so many constraints?
-constraints come from the demand of the
citizens
-agencies try to respond to citizen demands
for openness, honesty, and fairness
Agency Allies:
Iron Triangle- Agency, Committee,
Interest Group
Issue Networks- Interest Groups,
Congressional staffs, Universities
and think tanks, Media
Congressional Oversight
-Congress creates agencies and authorizes their
programs
-Congress appropriates monies to allow agency
to spend money on programs
-Appropriations committee approves most
expenditure requests
-House tends to recommend an amount lower
than the agency requests
-House can influence an agency’s policies by
“marking up” their budget
Appropriations committee becoming
less influential because:
-trust funds operate outside the regular
government budget
-Annual authorizations allow the legislative
committee greater oversight
-Budget deficits necessitate cuts
Informal controls over agencies:
-individual members of Congress seek
privileges for constituents
-Congressional committees may seek
committee clearance, the right to be consulted
before certain agency decisions are made ie.
expenditures
Five major complaints about the
bureaucracy:
Red tape, sometimes complex and
conflicting
Conflict- agencies work at cross purposes
Duplication-two agencies doing the same
thing
Imperialism-tendency of agencies to grow
Waste-spending more than necessary
Civil liberties become a major issue
for three reasons:
-Rights in conflict
-Enflaming of passions by policy entrepreneurs
-The political culture of the United States
Rights in conflict:
-Sheppard Case/Zimmerman Case- free press
vs. fair trial
-NY Times and Pentagon papers/Wikileakscommon defense vs. free press
-KKK rallies/Jerry Jones- free speech vs. public
order
Competing Rights- how do we know how
to decide?
Policy Entreprenuers:
Individuals or groups trying to limit the liberties
of another group or minority
-Sedition act- Federalists in fear of TJ and
anarchy
-The Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917-1918Attorney General Mitchell Palmer-Palmer raids
-Smith Act, Internal Security Act of 1950, and
Communist Control act of 1954- Senator Joe
McCarthy
First Amendment:
-Freedom of Expression
-Freedom of Religion- establishment clause
and free exercise clause
-Freedom of the Press-No Prior restraint
-Clear and present danger test-Schenk v. US
4 forms not always protected:
-Libel and slander
-Obscenity
-Symbolic speech
-false advertising, commercial speech
Testing Restrictions on Expression
-preferred position
-prior restraint
-imminent danger
Limits:
-neutrality
-clarity
-least restrictive means
Wall of Separation Principle:
Religion
Tests for Constitutionality:
Government involvement is legal
if-It has a secular purpose
-its primary effect neither advances nor
inhibits religion
-it does not foster an excessive
government entanglement with religion
Crime and Due Process
-4th through 8th Amendments deal with rights
of the accused.
-14th Amendment applies due process to the
states
-Exclusionary rule- when is a search
reasonable?
-Miranda and good faith exception
Why Civil Rights movement?
*Rise of Urban Ghettos
-isolated from economic mainstream- interest
group politics
-lacked political power- majoritarian politics
*Emergence of Civil Rights was a painful
process, but was speeded along because of:
-the emergence of white allies
-shifting to policy-making arenas where
southern whites had less of an advantage
-pressure from blacks themselves that rose
civil rights to prominence
-Liberal justice- Earl Warren
Civil Rights Issue:
Group denied access to facilities,
opportunities, or services available to other
groups
The issue is whether differences in
treatment are reasonable.
In some cases, they are- progressive taxes
In some cases they are not- classifications
by race or ethnicity are subject to strict
scrutiny

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
-Separate but equal
Ambiguities of the 14th Amendment
- Broad Interpretation: the Constitution is
colorblind, so no differential treatment is
acceptable
-
Narrow interpretation: equal legal rights, but
blacks and whites could otherwise be treated
differently
The Court chose the narrow interpretation
NAACP Strategy
Three step process:
1. Persuade the Court to declare unconstitutional
the laws creating schools that were separate
but unequal
2. Persuade the Court to declare unconstitutional
the laws creating schools that were separate
but so obviously unequal
3. Persuade the Court to rule separate schools are
inherently unequal and therefore
unconstitutional
Step One:
Obvious inequalities addressed between 19381948 cases
-Lloyd Gaines
-Ada Lois Sipuel
Step Two:
Separation creates inequality in less obvious
cases
-Heman Sweatt
-George McLaurin
Step three:
Declaring that separation is inherently unequal
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
-class action suit
-schools could not be separated by race
-integration is necessary
-Earl Warren “in the field of public education the
doctrine of separate but equal has no place.”
-must correct with “all deliberate speed”
-relied on social science rather than 14th
Amendment because the Court wanted a
unanimous decision
Resistance: Southern Manifesto
Desegregation v. Integration
-De jure segregation in the South
-De facto segregation in the North
How does the Court deal with this?
Charlotte-Mecklenberg Case: sets guidelines
for integration:
-to violate the Constitution, a school system must have
intended to discriminate
-one-race schools create the presumption of intent
-remedies for past discrimination can include quotas,
busing, redrawn district lines
-not every school must reflect the racial composition of
the entire system
White Flight creates single race schools
Four developments begin to turn the tide:
-Public opinion starts to change
-Violent white reactions of segregationists
received extensive media coverage
-Kennedy assassination
--1964 Democratic landslide allowed northern
Democrats to prevail in Congress