The Big Ideas
• Bureaucracy is inevitable.
• Bureaucrats do the work of the government, so in an important
sense the government is whatever the bureaucrats do.
• Bureaucracy has conflicting responsibilities: “The bureaucracy
is expected simultaneously to respond to the direction of
partisan officials and to administer programs fairly and
competently.”
• The president, Congress, and the courts have differing abilities
to bend the bureaucracy to their wills, and bureaucrats are able
to achieve power in their own right: autonomy within limits.
• Bureaucrats have their own views of how things should be:
agency perspective [political culture of the agency].
• Public administration is political administration: Agency politics
is inevitable.
Forest Service Mission
16 USC § 551. Protection of national forests; rules and
regulations: “The Secretary of Agriculture shall make
provisions for the protection against destruction by fire and
depredations upon the public forests and national forests
which may have been set aside . . . and he may make such
rules and regulations and establish such service as will insure
the objects of such reservations, namely, to regulate their
occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from
destruction.”
Source: U.S. Government Manual: 2008-09 -- http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gmanual/browse-gm-08.html
Source: U.S. Government Manual
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
Regions of the U.S. Forest Service
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
Regions of the U.S. Forest Service
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
U.S.F.S Region One
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
Lewis & Clark National Forest
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
Resources Committees
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php
http://energy.senate.gov/public/
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
Interested Groups (Iron Triangle)
Interested Groups (Issue Network)
Who Controls the Bureaucracy?
And How?
•
•
•
•
The President
Congress
The Courts
The Bureaucrats Themselves
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
Source: Thomas C. Cronin & Michael A. Genovese: Paradoxes of the American
Presidency (2004), p. 145
President
White House Office
Congress
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
President
The Courts
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
President
White House Office
Secretary of Agriculture
Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment
Congressional Committees
Chief Forester
Interest Groups
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
District Ranger
Recreation
Timber
Minerals
Fiscal v. Monetary Policy
•
•
•
•
•
What?
Who Governs?
How Used?
Relative Advantages of Each
System Bias
“By 1960 our national debt stood at $284 billion. ... Today the debt is $934
billion. ... We can leave our children with an unrepayable massive debt and
a shattered economy.” -- President Reagan 2/5/81
Today’ National Debt
http://zfacts.com/p/461.html