Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
• Large, complex organization of
appointed, not elected, officials.
– Includes all of the agencies, people, and
procedures needed to operate the government
• “bureau” – French for small desks, referring
to the king’s traveling business men who set
up small desks in town squares
• Bureaucracy = “government of small desks”
or “rule by desks”
Max Weber
• Famous early 20th century German
economist
• Bureaucracy – well organized, complex
machine that is a “rational” way for
society to organize its business
• Weber identified five common
characteristics of a “successful”
bureaucracy…
Weber’s Analysis
• Hierarchical authority structure – chain of
command, authority flows from top down
• Task specialization – individuals have unique
jobs, become experts in their area
• Extensive rules – clear policies allow similar
cases to be handled in similar ways
• Merit principle – hiring and promotion based
on ability, not favoritism
• Impersonality – clients are treated impartially
Bureaucratic Myths
• Americans generally dislike bureaucrats.
• Americans are generally satisfied with their
interactions with bureaucracies.
• The (federal) government is getting bigger
every year!
• Most growth is state and local
• Bureaucracies are ineffective and inefficient!
• Government bureaucracies are no more or less
efficient than private bureaucracies.
Who are the
Civil Servants?
• The bureaucracy is more representative of
the demographics of our population than
Congress, the Courts, or presidential
appointees in the executive branch.
• The diversity in bureaucratic jobs mirrors
the diversity in private sector jobs.
• Until ~ 100 years ago, jobs were awarded
through the patronage (spoils) system.
• a hiring and promotion system for political reasons,
based on knowing the right people.
Way Back When…
• Patronage - Rewarding supporters with jobs
• “Spoils system” – created by Andrew
Jackson, each President turned over the
bureaucracy
• Pendleton Act (1883) - Created in response
to criticism of patronage, more jobs will be
selected based on merit
How are
Civil Servants hired?
• Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883 created a
federal civil service
• Civil Service – Hiring and promotion based on
merit and nonpartisan government service.
• Merit principle - produces administration by
people with talent and skill based on exam scores
and job performance (promotion ratings).
• Nonpartisan civil service - government workers
insulated from the risk of being fired when a new
party comes to power.
How are the Civil Servants
hired? Part Deux
• GS (General Schedule) rating – ranges from GS 1 to
GS 18, by which positions and salaries can be keyed to
rating and experience.
• Senior Executive Service – 9,000 federal government
managers that provide leadership at the top of the civil
service system.
• High salaries, can be moved around based on need
• Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is in charge
of hiring for most agencies of the federal government.
• For each position that is open, the OPM will send
three names to the agency (known as the rule of
three).
Job Security
• After a probationary period, civil servants are
protected (very difficult to fire)
• An employee can appeal his or her dismissal, which
can consume weeks, months, or even years. (The right
of appeal must be exhausted before one’s paycheck
stops.)
• Ensuring a nonpartisan civil service requires that
workers have protection from dismissals that are
politically motivated.
• Protecting all workers against political firings may also
protect a few from dismissal for good cause.
• It is much easier to dismiss a cabinet member.
Political Appointees
• Every incoming president launches a
nationwide talent search to almost 3,000
positions.
– Plum Book – A listing of the top federal jobs
available for direct presidential appointment,
often with Senate confirmation.
– 500 top policymaking posts (mostly cabinet
secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant
secretaries, and bureau chiefs) and 2,500
lesser positions.
Political Appointees (II)
• Presidents look for individuals who combine
executive talent, political skills, and policy views
similar to those of the president.
• NOT civil service or merit positions
• Incoming presidents try to ensure diversity and balance in
terms of gender, ethnicity, region, and party interests.
• Some positions—especially ambassadorships—go to
large campaign contributors.
• Most will be political appointees, “in-and-outers,” who stay
for a while and then leave; they soon learn that senior
civil servants know more, have been there longer, and will
outlast them.
What do bureaucrats
do?
• Discretionary action – have the power to
execute laws and policies passed down by
the president or congress.
• Implementation – develop procedures and
rules for reaching the goal of a new policy
• Regulation – check private business activity
– Munn v. Illinois (1877) – SCOTUS upheld that
government had the right to regulate business
rates and services
Sheeple
• Administrative routine - bureaucrats follow
standard operating procedures (SOPs) to
help them make numerous everyday decisions.
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SOPs bring uniformity to complex organizations.
Justice is better served if rules are applied uniformly.
Uniformity also makes personnel interchangeable.
Routines are essential to bureaucracy
• they also become frustrating to citizens, who
term them “red tape” when they do not appear to
appropriately address a situation, and may
become obstacles to action.
When they aren’t
Sheeple
• Administrators’ dispositions - bureaucrats operate within strict routines
but often have considerable discretion to behave independently.
• Administrative discretion - the authority of policy administrators
to select among various responses to a given problem.
• Discretion is greatest when rules do not fit a case; but even in
agencies with elaborate rules and regulations—especially when
more than one rule fits—there is still room for discretion.
• street-level bureaucrats - bureaucrats who are in constant
contact with the public and have considerable discretion (including
police officers, welfare workers, and lower court judges).
• discretion depends on their dispositions about the policies and
rules they administer (bureaucrats may be indifferent to the
implementation of most policies, but some may conflict with their
policy views or personal or organizational interests).
• The exercise of discretion is hard to control: it is not easy to fire
bureaucrats in the Civil Service, and removing appointed officials
may be politically embarrassing to the president.
Cabinet Departments
Cabinet Departments
• Each department manages specific
policy areas, and each has its own
budget and its own staff.
• Each department has a mission and is
organized differently.
• Bureaus (sometimes they are called
administration, service, or office) divide
the work into more specialized areas.
Organization
Implementation
• Policy implementation occurs when the
bureaucracy carries out decisions of Congress,
the president, and even the courts.
• Public policies are rarely self-executing:
bureaucrats translate legislative policy goals into
programs.
• Congress typically announces the goals of a
policy in broad terms, sets up an administrative
apparatus, and leaves the bureaucracy the task
of working out the details of the program.
3 Steps of Policy
Implementation
• Creation of a new agency or assignment
of responsibility to an existing one
• Coordination of resources and personnel
to achieve the intended goals.
• Translation of policy goals into
operational rules of thumb and
development of guidelines
Privatization
• Private Contractors provide services without
expanding the permanent bureaucracy.
• Private Contractors provide specialized skills that
the government workers may lack.
• Competition in the private sector will (theoretically)
result in better service at lower costs (there is no
evidence to prove this).
• Contracting leads to less public scrutiny, as
government programs are hidden behind closed
corporate doors.
Policy Failure
• Faulty program design - a policy or program may be defective
in its basic theoretical conception
• Lack of clarity - bureaucracies are often asked to implement
unclear laws
• Lack of resources – lack of staff, necessary training, funding,
supplies, and equipment (sometimes authority)
• Administrative Routine - Standard Operating Procedures (aka
Red Tape) do not always neatly apply to a situation
• Administrative Discretion - the authority of bureaucrats to
choose from variety of responses to a given problem.
• Fragmentation - responsibility for a policy is sometimes
dispersed among several units within the bureaucracy.
Policy Problems
A Great Success!!
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was successfully
implemented because…
• Its goal was clear: to register African
Americans to vote in southern counties where their
voting rights had been denied for years.
• Congress outlawed literacy tests and other tests
previously used to discriminate against African-American
registrants.
• The act singled out six states in the Deep South in which
the number of African-American registered voters was
minuscule.
Voting Rights Act of
1965
• Its implementation was
straightforward (sending out
people to register them).
• The Justice Department was ordered to
send federal registrars to each county in
those states to register qualified voters.
• Implementation of this act helped bring
the vote to some 300,000 African
Americans in less than a year.
Voting Rights Act of
1965
• Authority of the implementers
was clear – They had the support of
the attorney general and even U.S.
marshals.
• Authority concentrated in the Justice
Department disposed to implementing the
law vigorously.
Independent Regulatory
Commissions
• Responsible for making (legislative) and
enforcing (executive) rules to protect the public
interest in some sector of the economy and for
judging (judicial) disputes over these rules.
• Each is governed by a small commission, appointed by the
president for fixed terms of office and confirmed by the
Senate; regulatory commission members cannot be fired by
the president.
• Critics claim that the close connection between the
regulators and the industries they regulate has meant that
the agencies have become the “captives” of industry.
Examples
• ICC (Interstate
Commission), FRB
(Federal Reserve Board),
NLRB (National Labor
Relations Board), FCC
(Federal Communications
Commission), FTC
(Federal Trade
Commission), SEC
(Securities and Exchange
Commission) AND NRC
(Nuclear Regulatory
Commission)
Regulation
• Use of governmental authority to control or
change some practice in the private sector.
• Congress gives bureaucrats broad mandates to
regulate activities (interest rates, the location of
nuclear power plants, & food additives)
• Most all bureaucratic agencies—not only the ones
called independent regulatory agencies—are in the
regulatory business
• Most government regulation is clearly in the public
interest (example, the U.S.D.A. regulates the quality of
meat products)
3 Elements of
Regulation
• A grant of power (authority) and set
of directions from Congress.
• A set of rules and guidelines by the
regulatory agency itself.
• Some means of enforcing
compliance with congressional
goals and agency regulations.
Origins
– Munn v. Illinois (1877) – Upheld the right of
government to regulate the business
operations of a firm.
• The case involved the right of the state of Illinois to
regulate the charges and services of a Chicago
warehouse.
– Interstate Commerce Commission (1887)
was the 1st regulatory agency, created to
regulate the railroads, their prices, and their
services to farmers.
How to Regulate
• Regulatory Agencies have to develop a
set of rules (often called guidelines)
• guidelines are developed in consultation with (and
sometimes with the agreement of) the people or
industries being regulated.
• The agency must then apply and
enforce its rules and guidelines, either in
court or through its own administrative
procedures.
2 Systems
• Command-and-control policy:
• The government tells business how to
reach certain goals
• Checks that these commands are
followed
• Punishes offenders
• Incentive system – Market like strategies
such as rewards are used to manage
public policy.
When to Regulate?
• Sometimes it waits for complaints to come to
it (as the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission does).
• Sometimes it sends inspectors into the field
(as the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration does).
• Sometimes it requires applicants for a permit
or license to demonstrate performance
consistent with congressional goals and
agency rules (as the Federal Communications
Commission does).
Deregulation
• The lifting of government restrictions on
business, industry, and professional activities.
• The idea behind deregulation is that the
number and complexity of regulatory
policies have made regulation too complex
and burdensome.
• Critics of regulation say:
• It raises prices.
• It hurts America’s competitive position abroad.
• It does not always work well.
Deregulation Critics
• Public would not be protected against severe
environmental damage and power shortages,
failures in the savings and loan industry, and
dangerous fluctuations in the real estate market.
• Critics of deregulation point to severe environmental
damage resulting from lax enforcement of
environmental protection standards during the Reagan
administration.
• Many observers attribute at least a substantial portion
of the blame for the enormously expensive bailout of
the savings and loan industry to the deregulation of it in
the 1980s.
Government
Corporations
• They provide a service that could be
provided by private sector
• They typically charge for their services,
though often at cheaper rates than the
consumer would pay a private sector
producer.
• You can not buy stock and you can not
collect dividends like with private
corporations.
Examples
• Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA)
• Amtrak
• Federal Deposit
Insurance
Corporation (FDIC)
• U.S. Postal Service
(the largest of the
government
corporations)
Independent
Executive Agencies
• They are not part of the cabinet departments,
independent regulatory commissions, or
government corporations
• They generally do not have regulatory
functions
• They usually perform specialized functions
• Their administrators are typically appointed by
the president and serve at his pleasure (can
be fired)
Examples
• Social Security
Administration (SSA)
• General Services
Administration (GSA)
• National Science
Foundation (NSF)
• National Aeronautics
and Space
Administration
(NASA).
Accountability
• Bureaucracy is constrained and controlled
by the US government
• Hatch Act (1939) – Government
employees can not participate in partisan
politics while on duty (elections,
campaigns, fund raisers, etc.)
– Softened in recent decades, 1st Amendment issues
Presidential Control
• Appoint the head of an agency: putting their people in
charge is one good way for presidents to influence
agency policy (also able to fire in most cases)
• Issue orders: executive orders to agencies; or
presidential aides can pass the word that “the
president was wondering if . . .”
• Control of an agency’s budget: each agency has some
influence with Congress, and it is Congress that
appropriates funds
• Reorganize an agency: sometimes not possible due to
an entrenched bureaucracy, backed by elements in
Congress and strong constituent groups.
Congressional Control
• Influence the appointment of agency heads: even
when senatorial approval of a presidential
appointment is not required, members of Congress
may be influential.
• Control of an agency’s budget: the congressional
power of the purse is a powerful weapon for
controlling bureaucratic behavior.
• Hold hearings: committees and subcommittees can
hold periodic hearings as part of their oversight job.
• Rewrite the legislation or make it more detailed:
Congress can write new or more detailed legislation
to limit bureaucratic discretion and make its
instructions clearer.
Iron Triangles
CONGRESS
INTEREST
GROUPS
BUREAUCRACY
Iron Triangle - three-way alliance among legislators,
bureaucrats, and interest groups to make or preserve
policies that benefit their respective interests
How it works?
• Everyone in the triangle has a similar interest
• Legislators get funding from interest groups
and make laws reality with the help of the
bureaucracy
• Interest groups provide valued information
to bureaucrats and money to legislators
• Bureau chiefs implement legislator policy
and interest group goals.
Iron Triangles
Tobacco
Example – Why is
tobacco not illegal?
House and Senate representatives, sympathetic to
tobacco, receive campaign funds and support from
tobacco by interest groups, and the representatives
make sure that tobacco farmers are defended
through legislation. DOA agency executes the
legislation while relying on the Congressional
budget. The interest groups provide the DOA with
valuable information to effectively execute laws.
-COMMON INTEREST – Keep tobacco alive =
keep their jobs alive
Why are they “iron”?
• Strong – bond can’t be easily broken by
President or Congress…or anyone
– There is an immense amount of money and
power that no one wants to surrender
• Referred to as “sub governments,” all the
real decisions are made among these 3
groups
Issue Network
• Iron triangles are susceptible to hyper-pluralism –
there are Interest Groups from opposite sides of an
issue who compete and stymie policy making
• Issue Network – complex group (includes media,
academics, policy experts, congressional staff, and
interest groups) that debates an issue and slows
policy-making
• The president often fills agency positions with people
from an issue network who support the president’s
own views
Criticism of
Bureaucracy
• Popular control of government depends on
elections, but we do not elect the 4.2 million
federal employees.
• The fact that voters do not elect civil servants
does not mean that bureaucracies cannot
respond to and represent the public’s interests.
• Many people see the bureaucracy as our “4th
branch” because of its power and influence.
• Many agencies combine executive, legislative, and
judicial powers
Criticism Continued
• “Red tape” – maze of government rules, regulations,
and paperwork that makes government
overwhelming to citizens
• Conflict – agencies that often work toward opposite
goals
• Duplication – agencies appear to do the same thing
• Unchecked growth – agencies expand unnecessarily
at high costs
• Waste – spending more than necessary
• Lack of accountability – difficult in firing an
incompetent bureaucrat
To Wrap Up…
• The federal bureaucracy has not grown
over the past two generations; in fact,
the bureaucracy has shrunk in size
relative to the population it serves.
• Originally, the federal bureaucracy had
a modest role; but as the economy and
the society of the United States
changed, additional demands were
made on government.
…and Summarize
• Considering the more active role the
bureaucracy is expected to play in dealing
with social and economic problems, a
good case can be made that the
bureaucracy is actually too small for many
of the tasks currently assigned to it (such
as the control of illicit drugs or the
protection of the environment).