Chapter 15 – The Bureaucracy

I. Distinctiveness of the bureaucracy

A. Size and complexity of bureaucracy are less important than political context in which bureaucracy acts.

1. Political authority over the bureaucracy shared by president and Congress2. Functions shared with related state, local agencies3. Adversary culture leads to close scrutiny and court challenges.

B. Scope of bureaucracy

1. Little public ownership of industry in the U.S.2. High degree of regulation of private industries.

II. Growth of the bureaucracy:

A. Congress creates, funds and investigates agencies and shapes the laws they administer

B. Officials affect how laws are interpreted, tone and effectiveness of administration

C. Patronage in 19th century led to administrative reforms

D. Excesses of industrialization motivated government to begin (controversial) regulation, beginning with Interstate Commerce Act

E. 1861–1901: aided by Supreme Court decisions, new agencies primarily performed service role:

1. Supreme Court held that executive agencies had no discretionary authority—could only apply statutes passed by Congress

2. Wars led to reduced restrictions and increase in executive branch personnel.

F. A change in role: Depression, Supreme Court decisions, Introduction of heavy income taxes, and World War II led to increased discretionary authority and government activism

III. The federal bureaucracy today:

A. Direct and indirect growth (modest growth, but increased use of private contractors, state and local government employees)

B. More important is growth in discretionary authority—the ability to make policies not

set out in the statutory law

C. Many factors explain the behavior of officials:

1

1. Recruitment and reward systems2. Personal and political attributes3. Nature of work4. Constraints imposed on agencies.

D. Most bureaucrats cannot be easily fired

E. Agencies dominated by lifetime bureaucrats who have worked for no other agency

1. Gives subordinates power over new bosses 2. Political appointees and upper-level bureaucrats are

unrepresentative of U.S. society: somewhat more liberal or conservative than average citizens

3. They generally do not take extreme positions

F. Correlation found between the type of agency and the attitudes of the employees;

G. Do bureaucrats sabotage their political bosses? In a word, NO, though they can make life miserable for some bosses….

I. The federal bureaucracy today (Cont’d)1. Culture and careers

a) Each agency has own culture.b) Strong agency culture motivates employees, but makes agencies resistant

to change.

2. Constraints are much greater on government agencies than on private bureaucracies.

a. Several agencies often assigned to single policy

b. Constraints established by laws, not market

c. Effects of constraints:

1. Government moves slowly or inconsistently 2. Easier to block action than take it 3. Red tape

d. Constraints result from reasonable demands for fairness, honesty.

3. Agency allies

a) Agencies seek alliances with congressional committees or interest groups (Iron triangle)

b) Iron Triangles less common today—politics too complexc) Issue networks: contentious groups that regularly debate policy on certain

issues along partisan, ideological lines

2

II. Congressional oversight (See box, Congressional Oversight and Homeland Security.)

A. Forms of congressional supervision

1. Congress creates agencies and authorizes programs.2. Congressional appropriations required.

B. House Appropriations Committee role:

1. Approves agency expenditures2. Recommends amount lower than requested 3. Has power to influence policies by “marking up” agency budgets 4. Appropriations Committee power waning

C. Legislative veto

1. Definition: requirement that executive decision must lie before Congress for specified period before it takes effect

2. Declared unconstitutional in Chadha (1983)

D. Congressional investigations

1. Power inferred from power to legislate2. Means for checking agency discretion and also for authorizing agency actions

independent of presidential preferences.

I. Bureaucratic “pathologies”:

A. Red tape—complex, conflicting rulesB. Conflict—agencies work at cross-purposesC. DuplicationD. Imperialism-- tendency of agencies to grow, irrespective of benefits and costs

(“mission creep”)E. Waste

IV. Reforming the Bureaucracy

A. Numerous attempts to make the bureaucracy work better for less moneyB. Bureaucratic reform is difficult, due to separation of powers, divided gov’t,

entrenched interests.

V. Answering the Enduring Questions:

A. What has happened to make bureaucracy a “fourth branch” of government? How does the bureaucracy fit into the constitutional system of separate institutions sharing powers?

3

1. Wars, economic development, societal needs, Court decision led to expanded power for the government and the establishment of administrative agencies.

2. Bureaucrats exercise discretion, but are checked by…

a) President, through appointment power of executives in departments and agencies

b) Congress, through oversight mechanismsc) Courts, through litigation and procedural reviews

B. What is the actual size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, and how does it work?

1. Employees of the government may be directly or indirectly employed –when government contracts awarded to private companies

C. What efforts have been made to reform the bureaucracy, and what are the prospects for improving government performance today?

1. Numerous reform efforts throughout the past 100 years2. National Performance Review (NPR), led by Vice President Al Gore, most

recent attempt –reforms received mixed reviews.

Policy-Making Process

I. Setting the agenda:

A. Most important decision affecting policy-making is deciding what belongs on the political agenda.

1. Shared beliefs determine what is legitimate for the government to do.2. Legitimacy is affected by…

a) Shared political valuesb) Weight of custom and traditionc) Impact of eventsd) Changes in the way that political elites think and talk about politics

B. The legitimate scope of government action

1. Always gets larger, regardless of party in power2. May also be enlarged without public demand and even when conditions are improving

a) Groups: a motivating force in adding new issuesb) Institutions are a second force adding new issues.

(1) Major institutions: courts, bureaucracy, Senate, national mediac) Elite attitudes more volatile and more interdependent with government

actions.

II. Making a decision:

A. Nature of issue:

4

1. Affects the kind of groups that become politically active;2. Affects the intensity of political conflict.

B. Costs and benefits of a proposed policy provide a way to understand how an issue affects political power.

1. Two aspects of costs and benefits are important:a) Perception of costs and benefits affects politicsb) People consider whether it is legitimate for a group to benefit.

2. Politics is a process of settling disputes over who benefits/pays and who ought to benefit/pay—so ideas and values are as important as interests.

3. People prefer programs that provide benefits to them at low cost.4. Perceived distribution of costs and benefits shapes the kinds of political coalitions that

form, but does not necessarily determine who wins.5. See the Politically Speaking box, Logrolling.

IIIIII. Majoritarian politics: distributed benefits, distributed costs

A. Gives benefits to large numbersB. Distributes costs to large numbersC. Involves appeals to large blocs of voters;D. Debate conducted in ideological or cost terms, e.g., military budgets.

IV. Interest group politics: concentrated benefits, concentrated costs

A. Gives benefits to relatively small, identifiable groupB. Costs imposed on another small and identifiable group.C. Debate is carried on by interest groups with minimal involvement by the wider public.

V. Client politics: concentrated benefits, distributed costs

A. Relatively small group receives benefits; that group has incentive to organize and build coalitions (logrolling)

B. Costs distributed widely—so there is little incentive for opposition to mobilize (e.g., pork barrel projects)

C. Beneficiaries become “clients” of government, because policies serve their needsD. See the Politically Speaking box, Boycott.

VI. Entrepreneurial politics: distributed benefits, concentrated costs:

A. Gives benefits to large numbersB. Costs imposed on a small and identifiable group.C. Success often depends on people who work on behalf of unorganized majorities—policy

entrepreneurs.D. Or a large number of voters or legislators become disgruntled with another’s benefits or

sees the need for a new policy. E. Legitimacy of client claims is important (e.g., Superfund).

VII. The case of business regulation:

A. The relationship of wealth and power

1. One view: economic power dominates political power; wealth buys political power.2. Another view: political power is threat to market economy

5

3. Neither extreme is correct.

B. Majoritarian politics:

1. Antitrust legislation in 1890s: Public indignation strong but unfocused

2. Antitrust legislation strengthened in 20th century.a) Presidents took initiative.b) Politicians, business leaders were committed.c) Federal Trade Commission (created in 1914)d) Clayton Act (1914)e) Enforcement determined primarily by ideology and personal convictions of current

presidential administration, not by interest group activism.

C. Interest group politics:

1. Labor-management conflict

a) 1935: labor unions seek government protection; business firms in oppositionb) 1947: Taft-Hartley Act a victory for managementc) 1959: Landrum-Griffin Act another victory for management.

2. Politics of the conflict affected the outcomes.

a) Highly publicized struggleb) Winners and losers were determined by the partisan composition of Congress.c) Economic conditions (Depression in the 1930s) and revelations about

racketeeringd) After enactment of laws, conflict continues in NLRB and courts.

3. Similar pattern found in Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970

D. Client politics

1. Agency capture likely when benefits focused and costs dispersed—agency created to serve group’s needs.

2. Licensing of attorneys, barbers, etc.

a) Restricts entry into the occupation or profession(1) Allows members to charge higher prices

b) People not generally opposed(1) Believe the regulations protect them(2) Costs are not obvious, because they are spread over so many customers.

3. Regulation of milk industry, sugar production, merchant shipping

a) Prevents price competition and keeps prices highb) Public unaware of inflated prices.

4. Struggle to sustain benefits depends on insider politics—deal with key Washington decision-makers, not the wider public

6

5. Insider politics is particularly protracted with regulatory agencies, which issue regulations influencing business practices.

E. Entrepreneurial politics relies on entrepreneurs to galvanize public opinion and mobilize congressional support.

1. 1906: Pure Food and Drug Act protected consumers

2. 1960s and 1970s: large number of consumer and environmental protection statutes passed (e.g., Clean Air Act, Toxic Substance Control Act)

3. Policy entrepreneur usually associated with such measures (e.g., Ralph Nader, Estes Kefauver, Edmund Muskie)

a) Often assisted by crisis or scandal, which focuses public attention on an issueb) Debate becomes moralistic and extreme

4. Risk of such programs: agency may be captured by the regulated industry:

a) Newer consumer and environmental protection agencies may be less vulnerable to capture because…

(1) Standards specific, timetables strict so bureaucrats have relatively little discretion

(2) Usually regulate many different industries; thus, they do not face a unified opposition

(3) Their existence has strengthened the public interest lobbies that sought their creation.

(4) Allies in the media may attack agencies for any pro-business bias.(5) Public interest groups can use courts to bring pressure on regulatory

agencies.

7