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Pedagogical Red Tape: Difficultiesin Teaching the Bureaucracy toUndergraduate StudentsWilliam J. Miller a , Karl Kaltenthaler b & Derek Feuerstein ca Southeast Missouri State Universityb The University of Akron and Case Western Reserve Universityc The University of AkronPublished online: 27 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: William J. Miller , Karl Kaltenthaler & Derek Feuerstein (2010) Pedagogical RedTape: Difficulties in Teaching the Bureaucracy to Undergraduate Students, Journal of Political ScienceEducation, 6:3, 244-257, DOI: 10.1080/15512169.2010.494479

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Pedagogical Red Tape: Difficulties in Teaching theBureaucracy to Undergraduate Students

WILLIAM J. MILLER

Southeast Missouri State University

KARL KALTENTHALER

The University of Akron and Case Western Reserve University

DEREK FEUERSTEIN

The University of Akron

Americans are often perceived as holding extremely negative views of governmentalbureaucrats. Phrases like bureaucratic waste and unresponsive bureaucracy fill themainstream media and taint the image of bureaucrats. Beginning in basic high schoolcivics classes, students are taught to respect the lawmaking process, the executivepower of the President, and the interpretive influence of judges, yet very few areinstructed to remember the mail carrier who delivers their mail consistently or thesocial service worker who handles a constant stream of phone calls—perhaps evenon their behalf. Given the lack of background most students have on the bureauc-racy, political science classes at the collegiate level are imperative in helping to over-come the popularly held negative myths of these important institutions. This articleexamines how academics attempt to tackle the complex issues surrounding theAmerican bureaucracy with their American government students.

Keywords bureaucracy in introductory courses, bureaucratic myths, introduc-tion to American government, teaching bureaucracy

Introduction and Review of the Literature

In order to successfully read this article, please read page eight, followed by pagethree, then page seven, but make sure you begin with page one. As confusing asthe instructions may seem, they are provided to remind us all of how many in thegeneral public feel about the bureaucracy. In the most basic sense, the typicalAmerican is perceived as believing that the bureaucracy has the strong potentialto send you to one agency then back again just to find out the agency you were justat could have solved your next problem. (We will not bother to discuss here howmany incorrect service lines one could be pushed through at any of the aboveagencies before finding the proper one.) Bureaucracy is a shared experience that

Address correspondence to William J. Miller, Department of Political Science (MS 2920),Southeast Missouri State University, One University Plaza, Cape Girardeau, MO 63701.E-mail: wmiller@semo.edu

Journal of Political Science Education, 6:244–257, 2010Copyright # 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1551-2169 print=1551-2177 onlineDOI: 10.1080/15512169.2010.494479

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everyone is bound to have encountered at least once, if not more, in one’s lifetime;for example, almost every American shares stories of bureaucratic nightmares atthe Bureau of Motor Vehicles. From these experiences, a general disdain for thebureaucracy can form. In everyday life, people have regularly complained aboutthe ‘‘cushy’’ jobs and the red tape created by this overbearing, rigid system knownas the American bureaucracy. However, as with many things in life, we tend to forgetthe good whenever the bad arises. Few remember the countless days when maildelivery operates properly but rather focus on the one day it arrives an hour late.

The purpose of this article is to call for more discussion and research intothe topic of how to better incorporate coverage of bureaucracy in introductorygovernment courses for college students. Since the bureaucracy is too often ignoredor treated as less important than the other branches of government, additional atten-tion and a better handling of the subject in the introductory course will assiststudents in truly understanding how their government operates. Further, for depart-ments without a public administration program, the introductory course could bethe only exposure to bureaucracy that undergraduate students receive. In depart-ments with public administration programs, a better handling of bureaucracy inlower-level courses will assist students as they enter upper-level public administrationcourses. Overall, the focus of this article is to examine the state of teaching bureauc-racy in introductory courses on American government and to call for furtherattention to be devoted to the subject.

The reasons for this popular negative attitude towards bureaucracy cut acrossnumerous elements of American life. Politicians run entire campaigns against thebureaucracy, turning the government workers into their opposition in a quest foroffice. Intellectual scholars tend to portray bureaucrats as out of control and respon-sible to no one. The media makes bureaucrats and other governmental workers theantagonists of plot lines. Presidents speak negatively of the difficulty they have intheir dealings with the bureaucracy. Perceptions in political culture, such as editorialcartoons and political jokes, show the bureaucracy as a mass of hypocritical andfoolish individuals. When all of these elements come together, it is easy to imaginewhy the popular perception is that the bureaucracy acts against the interests ofeveryday Americans. Americans presume that government exists to bend to their willdue to the discussion of peoples’ needs and wants. Even the idea of representativebureaucracy—which holds that if the attitudes of administrators are similar to theattitudes of the general public, they will make decisions that are responsive to thedesires of the public—has been strongly debunked as a mere symbolic affirmationof responsiveness by the state (Meier and Nigro 1976). Citizens are ‘‘quick to criticizegovernment, derisive of public servants and assuming that government is alwayswrong and wasteful’’ (Lee and Paddock 2001, 167).

For undergraduate students, the bureaucracy is one of the least understoodtopics in American government—particularly when they initially enter college. Highschool textbooks and teachers typically devote little time to the bureaucracy. Thetopic is more abstract and measureless than other areas and consequently receivesless attention. Further, descriptions of bureaucracy are often full of inherent contra-dictions. One person’s red tape is another’s bureaucracy. For example, a strength ofbureaucracy is its impersonal nature, yet this same characteristic is also one of themost often cited complaints of bureaucratic agencies. The oddity is that in termsof government, all college freshmen have experienced the bureaucracy, even if it isunbeknownst to them. The entire structure of universities and colleges epitomizes

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the ideals of Weberian bureaucracy with hierarchy, specialization, and standardoperating rules and procedures. Yet, many students fail to realize the true influenceof the bureaucracy and bureaucratic structures on their everyday lives.

Given that the topic is still relatively fresh to students taking an introductorygovernment course, it is imperative that faculty members devote time to the subjectand treat it with the same diligence given to other branches of government, despitethe potentially dry subject matter. The bureaucracy—in all its vastness—exists inareas students may not even realize. Introductory discussions on bureaucracy shouldhelp students to identify the silent bureaucrats whose daily activities assure that lawspassed by Congress, upheld by the President and not declared unconstitutional bythe Supreme Court fulfill their desired purposes and allow government to function.While no discussion about or understanding of the ideals of standard operating pro-cedures or hierarchies will make waiting in line at the Division of Motor Vehicles(DMV) any less difficult, the hope is that such an understanding will allow studentsto at least think twice before immediately assuming all rules and regulations aremerely red tape. Further, being able to realize all the ways that bureaucracy touchesa student’s life will hopefully lead to an increased appreciation.

A balanced coverage of the bureaucracy is an important aspect of a true intro-duction to government for young students. While it is unquestionably important toremain critical of bureaucracy when it is deserved, it is also important that facultymembers help students to realize the importance of bureaucracy in maintainingthe day-to-day operations of government. Stories of bureaucratic red tape andgovernment waste are far more memorable than tales of the Food and Drug Admin-istration (FDA) agent assuring the safety of our food, yet such routine tasks shouldnot be overlooked. When functioning properly, bureaucracy is designed to gounnoticed, drawing minimal attention for its efforts. While other branches are fullof figures that dominate the news, either by choice or action, bureaucracy—at its fin-est—avoids the spotlight. Students need to be shown that just because it does notdraw the consideration of other realms of government, bureaucracy still remains acentral tenet of our system of governance.

As Dwight Waldo (1987) explains, learning the organizational ropes is chieflylearning who’s who, what’s what, and why’s why. Given the scope of Americanbureaucracy, it comes as no surprise that students may struggle to firmly grasp thissubset of government. Bureaucracy lacks the drama of the founding of our nation,the concrete examples and previously laid foundation of the three main branchesof government, or the interesting modern ties of political parties, campaigns, andmedia. Given the estrangement between public administration and other subfieldsof political science, Waldo insisted that public administration was generally viewedin low esteem by most political scientists—as evident by his interpretation of thepolitics-administration dichotomy—but specifically mentioned a few reasons for thisbeing the case (Waldo 1987). He felt that the ‘‘liberal art ethos’’ did not encouragethe teaching of employment skills but rather looked to enrich the mind and refine thesenses (Waldo 1987). Further, Waldo found that the field of public administrationfailed to participate in the behavioralist movement of the 1960s, which dominatedpolitical science at the time. As a consequence, many classically trained politicalscientists may underestimate—or undervalue—the contributions of public adminis-tration research.

Public administration and affairs scholars have devoted limited energy to con-sidering how their field is perceived in introduction to government texts. Instead, they

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seem to focus on more high-level questions, such as Robert Denhardt’s (2001)examination of the big questions of public administration education. No mentionis given to lower-level classes and instead debates over theory and practice and deliv-ery mechanisms for Master’s of Public Administration (MPA) curricula dominatediscussion. Likewise, the Journal of Public Administration Education focuses almostentirely on issues related to MPA programs, doctoral degrees, and upper-level under-graduate courses. However, Curtis Ventriss finds that ‘‘What must be recognizedis that at the heart of public service is not only the importance of administrationbut the purpose and role of educating individuals to facilitate democratic self-governance’’ (1991, 7). Even if public administration scholars want to focus onupper-level and advanced degrees, they should be hopeful that students are intro-duced to bureaucracy and public service in a way that makes them wish to learn more.

The entire genesis for this article came when writing out an initial syllabus foran introduction to government course last spring. Pressed for time, we found our-selves having to remove subject matter from previous semesters. While attemptingto determine which chapters we believed students could do without, we ultimatelydecided to pull the day typically spent discussing the bureaucracy. The reasoningwas selfish. The topic was what we found to be the least fun to teach. Civil rightsand liberties provided opportunities for debate over issues related to homelandsecurity and freedom of speech. The Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Courtpermitted discussions of current events. Political parties and campaigns allowed theopportunity to show campaign commercials from varying decades. The media gavetime to discuss popular modern shows, such as The Daily Show and The ColbertReport. However, the bureaucracy was dry. By the end of the semester, we realizedthe mistake we had made. While students likely will never interact with thePresident, a Supreme Court Justice, or even their own Congressman, they wouldundoubtedly interact with bureaucrats. Being college students at a university, theyalready had.

If students were to turn to Roget’s Thesaurus, they would find red tape listed as asynonym for bureaucracy. If they instead turned to The American Heritage Diction-ary, they would encounter a definition that describes bureaucracy as characterizedby an unwieldy administration and inflexible rules. With all of the negative stereo-types and myths present about bureaucracy, it is essential to assist students in learn-ing the positives—not just the critiques—of bureaucracy. Before beginning toformulate potential ways to better educate students, it is important to determinewhat we, as college professors, are competing against when trying to advocate forthe merits of properly functioning bureaucracy.

Politicians and the Bureaucracy

Historically, politicians run entire campaigns against the bureaucracy in an attemptto win votes, despite the fact that they are measurably more scornful of bureaucratsthan those individuals whose votes they are attempting to win (Subcommittee onIntergovernmental Relations 1973, 310). An analysis of the 104th Congress deter-mined that representatives used the word bureaucrat more than 70% of the timewhen referring to public administrators; in approximately 84% of those cases, theterm was used in a depreciatory manner (Hall 2002). Thus, clearly, elected officialsplay a role in shaping the public’s opinion of the American bureaucracy, despite theirviews typically being more negative than those of their electorate.

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The Media and Bureaucracy

The media ultimately does little more than promote the views of politicians andacademic scholars. American popular culture ‘‘has a long tradition of viewinggovernment bureaucracies negatively’’ (Lee 2001, 297). An analysis of televisionshows shown from 1955 to 1998 found clear evidence that the portrayal of civilservants went from highly positive to highly negative over the course of the fourdecades, replacing businesspeople as ‘‘television’s least likeable occupational group’’(Partnership for Trust in Government 1999, 108). As the analysis clearly demon-strated, the portrayal of the bureaucracy went from reaffirming the integrity ofgovernment to showing it as corrupt. Not a single primetime television episode inthe 1990s showed government bureaucrats actually serving their public (Partnershipfor Trust in Government 1999). Bureaucrats ended up finding the media to be ‘‘oursworn enemies, determined to bad-mouth government at every opportunity andevery turn’’ (Lee 2000, 454). Typical bureaucratic news stories fall into one of severalarchetypes, including ‘‘the money wasting bureaucrat, the victim of a bureaucracy,and uncaring government’’ (Lee 2000, 455).

Seinfeld—the most popular sitcom in television history—includes a continuingplot with the antagonist portraying a bureaucrat. Newman, the mail carrier, wasthe evil neighbor always trying to bring Seinfeld down. In the show, Seinfeld hascharacterized Newman as pure evil. Newman spends countless episodes speakingof mail carriers only completing, at the most, 50% of their route and arguing thatzip codes are meaningless. While those claims are outlandish and exaggerated, theembellishment may be based on some truth that bureaucrats only perform half theirjob at best and bureaucrats retain worthless information. True or not, the image ofmail carriers, characterized or realistic, is portrayed in a negative light.

Lastly, a review of movies from the past decade concludes that federal adminis-trators were ‘‘the baddest villains in Hollywood films’’ (Rickey 1996, G01). Films‘‘have reinforced the public’s long-standing, poor image of government’’ (Holzerand Slater 1995, 85). ‘‘Cinema wields the heaviest hammer’’ at bureaucrats, depictingthe profession in unforgiving images (Holzer and Slater 1995, 77). Mordecai Leefinds only 20 films with positive images of bureaucrats serving major roles, includingmovies such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Jaws, All the President’s Men, and The Post-man (Lee 2000). Thus, the media joins with academics and politicians in hasteningthe image of bureaucrats as hated individuals by the American public.

Executives and the Bureaucracy

Presidents have given bureaucrats a far from ringing endorsement regarding the inter-action between the two branches. Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated that to alterbureaucracy ‘‘is like punching a feather bed. You punch it with your right, andyou punch it with your left, until you are finally exhausted, and then you find thedamn bed just as it was before you started punching’’ (Eccles 1951, 336). Trumanlamented that ‘‘when it comes to these bureaucrats, I can’t do a damn thing’’ (Rossiter1956, 42). Kennedy told a caller ‘‘I agree with you, but I don’t know if the governmentwill’’ (Nathan 1975, 1). Jimmy Carter described the relationship as follows: ‘‘Before Ibecame President, I realized and was warned that dealing with the federal bureauc-racy would be one of the worst problems I would have to face. It has been worse thanI had anticipated’’ (Carter 1978). Moreover, perhaps most famously of all, Ronald

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Reagan told Americans that ‘‘the nine most terrifying words in the English languageare ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’’’ (Agatino 2004, 64). Thus, we seea historical trend towards our nation’s executives viewing the bureaucracy as difficultto work with and portraying it to the general public in a negative light, further dee-pening the potential for Americans to negatively view the bureaucrats of the nation.

Political Satire and the Bureaucracy

The bureaucracy is a favorite target of satirists and political cartoons. The Americanbureaucracy is seen as an easily attacked institution with which Americans are likelyto have some degree of frustration. Thus, not surprisingly, a simple Google searchwill result in hundreds of political cartoons lamenting the ineffectiveness, incompe-tence, and occasionally the downright silliness of the American bureaucracy.

The cartoons play on citizens’ perceived beliefs (and fears) of how bureaucracyfunctions and thus have the potential to reinforce and deepen incorrect stereotypes.Reflect on the following definition of American bureaucracy passed around the Internetas a popular forwarded e-mail: ‘‘Bureaucracy, American Style: You have two cows. Thegovernment takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, thenpours the milk down the drain’’ (Cows & Politics Explained). While this e-mail is farfrom an academic approach to the subject matter, one must remember that, when look-ing at public opinion, the most logical, well-founded arguments may not be those thatresonate. Thus, we can clearly begin to see the importance of popular political culture.

Academe and the Bureaucracy

Scholars offer a gamut of opinions of the bureaucracy, ranging from it being simplyunresponsive to treacherously antidemocratic. A survey of introductory Americanpolitics textbooks at the collegiate level in 1991 shows that over 75% portray publicadministrators as ‘‘government employees who stay on forever’’ and approximatelytwo-thirds represent government bureaucracy as ‘‘all powerful and out of control’’(Cigler and Neiswender 1991, 444). Textbooks fail to discuss the public service as‘‘a profession or deal with public administration either from an academic orpractitioner perspective’’ (Cigler and Neiswender 1991, 448). A separate analysisof textbooks determines that ‘‘the most deeply rooted and persistent misconception’’of these texts is that ‘‘federal administrators are not accountable’’ to Congress(Lorenzo 1999, 744). While it is widely assumed that few lay Americans are rever-ently reading academic journals to determine their personal opinions of the bureauc-racy, the fact that students of political science are being exposed to such a potentiallynegative view could have ramifications as their generation moves forward.

Michel Crozier (1964, 3) believes that ‘‘the vulgar and frequent sense of the word‘bureaucracy’ . . . evokes the slowness, the ponderousness, the routine, the compli-cation of procedures, and the maladapted response of ‘bureaucratic’ organizationsto the needs which they should satisfy, and the frustrations which their members, cli-ents or subjects consequently endure.’’ Weber, who we still use today to examine theideal type of bureaucracy, lamented that ‘‘It is horrible to think that the world couldone day be filled with nothing but those little cogs, little men clinging to little jobsand striving towards bigger ones. . . . The passion for bureaucracy is enough to driveone to despair’’ (Bendix 1960, 464). And Charles Goodsell (1985, 2)—largelyremembered as an advocate for bureaucracy—even notes that ‘‘The employee of

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bureaucracy, that lowly bureaucrat, is seen as lazy or snarling or both. The officeoccupied by this pariah is viewed as bungling or inhuman or both. The overall edificeof bureaucracy is pictured as overstaffed, inflexible, unresponsive, and power-hungry, all at once.’’

Richard Stillman (1996)—going against the grain in much of academia—devotessignificant space in his book to carefully explaining away the ten biggest myths aboutbureaucracy. He makes the case that bureaucracy is not the problem in Americangovernment, bureaucracy is not overwhelmingly large or monolithic, bureaucratsare not all alike, bureaucrats do not remain in their positions forever, bureaucracyis not entirely concentrated at the federal level, bureaucracy does not operate insecret, and that bureaucracy is not wasteful, all-powerful, or nothing more than merered tape. However, most textbooks do not take the time that Stillman does to begindebunking the commonly held myths.

Teaching against the Myth

We have shown that the perception of Americans harboring negative attitudestowards the bureaucracy is prominent in numerous mediums that college studentsare likely to encounter. When the general public has been presented with negativeimages of the bureaucracy by elected officials and the bureaucracy is portrayed ina negative light in the media and pop culture, the idea of bureaucracy suffers as awhole. Granted, one could ask the question of what does the pop culture perceptionof bureaucracy have to do with academics and the topic of teaching and learningwithin political science? In teaching, an instructor must overcome the so-called ‘‘pub-lic myths’’ in order to teach the reality of the situation and topic on hand. Forexample, some in the public may believe the President rules over all and has completeauthority. From there, the instructor must debunk this myth and explain the systemof checks and balances and the separation of powers. However, in most introductorypolitical science courses, the main pillars of concentration tend to be on thePresidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Within each of these subjects, theConstitution provides the basic understanding of the institutions. However, forthe bureaucracy, the Constitution does not provide a concrete definition or evenan explanation of what is the bureaucracy, what comprises the bureaucracy, andwhat the responsibilities of the bureaucracy are. The word administration never evenappears within our national guiding document.

Methodology

Having decided to continue teaching the bureaucracy to a class, we began to wonderhow our colleagues handled teaching the subject matter and whether they agreed thatmany students struggled to grasp the idea of bureaucracy. In order to conduct thisexploratory research, we conducted a phenomenological study via survey with tenprofessors who teach (or have taught) courses on introductory American govern-ment. With all respondents having to share the experience of teaching the bureauc-racy, we found no issue in utilizing a purposive sampling method. Given that ourultimate goal is to encourage further discussion and research on the topic, the useof ten respondents was deemed appropriate, particularly given the qualitative natureof the study. As the results section will show, after ten initial surveys we were able todemonstrate a variety of opinions regarding teaching bureaucracy to young students.

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We did not believe that within the scope of this study that further cases would neces-sarily add to our results. Seven respondents teach in Ohio, with one respondent eachcoming from Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York. Three taught at private,liberal arts institutions, four at large, public universities, and three at smaller stateschools. Class sizes ranged from 20 to 145. Given that these courses are all at theintroductory level and open to all students, we can safely presume that therespondents teach classes that are fairly representative of their overall universitypopulation.

Eight-question surveys were administered electronically to help determine thesubjective views of these respondents to issues surrounding the teaching of the bureau-cracy to undergraduate students (the entire survey may be viewed in Appendix 1).Follow-up conversations occurred to discuss points of interest. The goals of theresearch were not to be explanatory in nature. There are no hypotheses to be scientifi-cally tested. Rather, we merely hoped to begin to formulate ways that we can considermaking the bureaucracy a more student—and professor—friendly subject to teach byexamining variations in current methods. Given these goals, the use of broad,open-ended questions with ten professors from political science and public administra-tion departments served well in beginning to note trends and categories of response.Further, we hoped to determine whether faculty members agree that the topic is diffi-cult for students and professors alike. Given that the survey was administered totrained academics that have all taught bureaucracy in an introduction to Americangovernment class, we assumed that respondents would signify if they disagreedwith the premise of a question, which many did throughout the surveys.

Results

We began our exploration by asking respondents what we felt would be a simplequestion: to define bureaucracy. While textbooks typically formulate definitionsbased on Weber’s seven characteristics of the ideal bureaucracy, answers to the per-sonal definition of bureaucracy for academics varied greatly. Bureaucracy, derivedfrom ‘‘bureau’’ and ‘‘kratos,’’ literally means the power of the office (Hummel2000). Definitions appear to follow one of three paths. Some respondents respondedwith definitions rooted in Weber. These definitions spoke of bureaucrats as being‘‘specialized, hierarchical, and experts.’’ They have ‘‘specific job responsibilities’’and processes are ‘‘defined in documents and rules.’’ According to one definition,‘‘the standardization of performance [output] is the primary goal.’’ All in all, thesedefinitions utilize Weber’s structure of organization to formulate their basis.Another series of definitions focused on the work of bureaucrats, rather than thestructure of bureaucracy. These definitions described bureaucracy as ‘‘the lifebloodof government . . . impacting the masses and inevitably impacting citizens’ views ofgovernment.’’ Bureaucrats are seen as the ‘‘people who do the work of govern-ment . . . distributing the checks, fixing the roads, and processing the paperwork.’’More basically, bureaucracy is seen as ‘‘the tools of government.’’ The third typeof definition discussed the negative stereotypes that bureaucracy has become knownfor. In this realm, we find mentioning of ‘‘gridlock, bureaucratic incompetence andwaste, the iron law of bureaucracy, and all that is wrong with government.’’

Scholars, based on these personal definitions, appear to each approach the topicthrough a different lens. While all may be correct, each can ultimately shape how astudent views the operation of bureaucracy. Weberian definitions provide much

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insight but utilize technical terms that may not be easily understood by undergrad-uate students, making bureaucracy seem even more complex and difficult to fathom.Defining it as the tools of government allows students to understand what bureauc-racy does but fails to explain how such organizations are typically structured. Andlastly, definitions that capitalize on negative terms appear to reinforce preconceivednotions while neglecting the good accomplished by bureaucratic agents and agencies.

Moving from how academics define the bureaucracy, we next asked them toexplain what they thought made the bureaucracy more difficult to teach than othertopics in American government. Responses varied greatly from one another. One ofthe most comprehensive answers explained that:

There are so many myths about bureaucracy (first and foremost that thebureaucracy is governmental.) From the very first time a student (maybefrom 4th grade civics) is told about the bureaucracy, it is presented in anegative (and inaccurate) light. Much of the routine activities of governmentare both efficient and effective because of bureaucratic processes and rules.

Respondents said that the bureaucracy is ‘‘harder to bring to life’’ and full of‘‘fairly dull details.’’ The material is ‘‘pretty dry’’ and students do not have the same‘‘natural interest’’ in it that they have for other sectors of government. Ultimately,professors seem to struggle to ‘‘think of anything interesting to say about the workthey do.’’ The bureaucracy is ‘‘very complex, large and it is difficult to understandwho is and is not a bureaucrat.’’ Students lack any ‘‘recipe knowledge’’ and tend‘‘to not appreciate the complexity of bureaucratic organizations.’’ Without‘‘anything with which to associate the bureaucracy’’ and a sense of unfamiliarityas they ‘‘rarely know the names of people in the bureaucracy,’’ students struggleto apply the separation-of-powers concept to how agencies are created and functionpolitically. Last, the bureaucracy ‘‘requires faculty to abandon their notes fromlast year and to update their PowerPoints . . . because to teach it well requires thatit be linked to what is going on right now in the lives of students.’’

On the opposite side of the argument, we asked academics what about thebureaucracy might make it more difficult for students to understand than othertopics in American government. While many repeated portions of their previousanswer, some new trends emerged as well. In a simple summation of previousthoughts, students may see the bureaucracy as ‘‘abstract, formal, distant, andcomplicated . . . a mass of acronyms and weird rules.’’ The bureaucracy runs againstthe typically held ideals of democracy since ‘‘nonelected officials gather so muchpower’’ and ‘‘bureaucratic organizations take on so many different forms.’’ Itbecomes so complex that it is almost, to many students, ‘‘intangible.’’ As an abstractconcept, ‘‘it is not covered nearly as much, nor in the same way, as presidential orcongressional coverage.’’ Textbook chapters on the bureaucracy are typically ‘‘dryand lifeless . . .since we don’t know what to say about the bureaucracy, studentsare left kind of empty.’’ While students may have ‘‘filled out Internal RevenueService (IRS) tax forms, paid city water bills, dealt with jobs and family services,or filled out Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms,’’ it is notknown whether they connect such actions with the idea of bureaucracy. Ultimately,it appears that professors find the size and complexity of bureaucracy coupledwith its drier subject material to be the main difficulties in both teaching andunderstanding the material related to the bureaucracy.

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In order to begin looking at more specific reasons why students struggle with thebureaucracy, we offered respondents a chance to reply to specific questions related todiffering strategies that could assist students in better grasping this material. First,we asked our respondents whether they feel that the bureaucracy not being rootedin the Constitution (as opposed to Congress being in Article I, the President in Arti-cle II, and the federal judiciary in Article III) makes it more difficult to teach orunderstand. Dwight Waldo (1987) notes how the word administration is missingfrom the entire Constitution. Rather than shape it themselves, the framers ‘‘left itfor history to determine, with only a few referents, how what we regard as publicadministration be empowered, organized, operated, and controlled’’ (Waldo 1987).One respondent made the claim that the bureaucracy is rooted in the Constitution.Specifically, the respondent pointed to Article II, Section 3 that explains the powerto ‘‘take care that laws be faithfully executed’’ and to ‘‘recommend measures’’ andArticle II, Section 2 where the President ‘‘may require the opinion in writing.’’ How-ever, on the whole, other respondents approached our question differently. Manyfound that ‘‘the less explicit constitutional foundation does partly explain the factthat our students are less familiar with these institutions.’’ Further, one respondentpointed out that public school teachers typically focus heavily on the Constitution,which means the bureaucracy is often ignored for students at a younger age. The big-gest reason that constitutional roots were not identified as a potential reason for lessunderstanding by undergraduate students was that other topics, ‘‘such as interestgroups, political parties, and the media,’’ are fairly easy to teach and understandwhile not being explicitly covered in the Constitution either. Lastly, a prominentpublic administration scholar pointed out that finding a constitutional basis forthe bureaucracy was the Holy Grail for many public administration scholars—namely John Rohr—and that it no longer proves a problem if other branches ofpolitical science buy into his arguments.

Next, we asked respondents to comment on whether they feel that the fact thatthere is less ability to relate bureaucrats to identifiable public figures (as we can withthe Presidency by looking at Bush, Lincoln, or Kennedy, for example) makes thebureaucracy more difficult to understand or teach. One respondent sums up muchof the discussion by responding:

Certainly Alberto Gonzales or William Ruckelshaus cannot competewith a President for air-time, but who can? Once the comparison is notto a President, but to a member of Congress or even a Supreme Courtjustice I think the name and face recognition obstacles are similar,creating similar teaching challenges.

Some respondents felt that street-level bureaucrats, such as police officers, arethe identifiable figures; however, one can easily question whether the link betweenpolice officer and bureaucrat is made as readily as George Bush and President. Inthe same sense, one respondent was of the belief that it is more important to recog-nize agencies as ‘‘stand alone organizations.’’ Likewise, one professor lamented thathis students cannot even recognize their members of Congress. As ‘‘elected officialsand their appointees hog the limelight’’ and ‘‘bureaucracies fly under the radarscreens,’’ one tactic used by academics has been to ‘‘rely on identifiable personalitiessuch as Reno and Albright under Clinton or Rumsfeld and Rice under Bush.’’Lastly, in an interesting approach, one respondent pointed out that the goals of

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expertise and competency make it so the ideal would be for bureaucrats to be‘‘anonymous and faceless.’’ Consequently, a bureaucrat that gains individual notor-iety may be failing to fulfill his or her mission. In a similar vein to the Constitutionquestion, we find a lukewarm response full of contradictory reasoning to the idea ofthe bureaucracy not being as easily identifiable for students.

Moving towards teaching methods utilized by professors, we asked respondentsto describe examples they use to portray the bureaucracy to students. Ultimately, theexamples and adjectives that professors use to demonstrate the bureaucracy canshape what students walk away from the class retaining. One respondent describedhow he ‘‘shows students the budget, talks about how groups lobby the bureaucracy,shows how the bureaucracy lobbies Congress, and emphasizes the role of politicalappointments.’’ Some talk about using ‘‘practical examples that appear in the paper’’and another chooses to ‘‘isolate a small number of agencies that have relevance to aparticular group of students and discuss them.’’ In regards to specific examples,professors cite using the Highway Patrol, Federal Emergency Management Agency(FEMA), the Transportation Security (TSA), the IRS, the DMV, or the State Depart-ment (applying for a passport). However, it should be noted that many of these exam-ples carry a negative connotation, potentially tainting the view of students. Adjectivesthat professors cite using include ‘‘complex and impersonal,’’ ‘‘slow, deliberate, andhierarchical,’’ and ‘‘red tape and paper pushers.’’ Again, none of these terms necessar-ily paint a positive, reinforcing image of the bureaucracy. One professor simply triesto ‘‘convey to students that the meat they consume, the skies they fly in, and the airthey breathe all goes through a bureaucratic agency and actor or actors.’’

In a rare moment of unity, all of our respondents believe students typically viewthe bureaucracy in a negative light—particularly upon entering the classroom. Tobegin, the negative aspects are more easily introduced and understood, along withbeing ‘‘easier to dramatize.’’ The bureaucracy is seen as ‘‘telling people what todo’’ while individual bureaucrats are oftentimes regarded as ‘‘overpaid and lazy.’’Most opinions of the bureaucracy are formed through an unpleasant experienceand ultimately ‘‘no one remembers when the agent at the DMV was pleasant andefficient, but we all remember about long waits, rude employees, and incompetentwork.’’ Rather than look at the normal day-to-day operations, we tend to focuson stereotypes, particularly ‘‘scandals, waste, and fraud.’’ These are the issues thatstudents remember. When our contact with bureaucracies and bureaucrats ‘‘comeat inopportune or aggravating times (i.e., snow removal, water line breaks, drivers’license renewal, and E-check) it is no surprise that bureaucracy is viewed as beingcumbersome and aggravating.’’

Most respondents agreed that understanding the bureaucracy is extremelyimportant to understanding American government. The bureaucracy helps thegovernment run and ‘‘students need to know that it is not only the elected officialsthat have power, but the postal workers and police officers too.’’ We are all morelikely to interact with a bureaucrat than a President or member of Congress. Giventhat ‘‘few students will actually write, execute, or interpret the laws’’ and ‘‘studentswill need service,’’ it is imperative that students understand how the bureaucracy fitsinto the political process. Taking a different approach, one public administrationscholar describes that ‘‘every time [he] listens to international relations professorsdiscuss foreign policy as based upon the actions of governments that are monoliths,[he is] reminded of the importance of understanding how complex bureaucraticprocesses operate.’’

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Discussion and Conclusion

Much more research needs to be examined on this topic. Cigler’s textbook study hasnow been dated by two decades and should be revisited with modern textbooks.Rather than merely conducting a small-N study of academics, a more widespreadsurvey should be conducted asking variants of the same questions. At the same time,students should be included in future research to determine what they believe wouldmake the topic more interesting and easier to comprehend.

There are two ways to discuss the bureaucracy, and both prove to be important toconsider. The Weberian ideals explain how to identify bureaucratic organizations butprove to be incomplete without modern examples. However, just because case studiessuch as FEMA’s handling of Hurricane Katrina are easy to utilize in the classroom,faculty need to take extra measures to assure that not all stories are negative.

One professor went against the grain and stated that he ‘‘usually skips [thebureaucracy] chapter in the book and [doesn’t think] that the average, generaleducation student is any worse off for it.’’ Majors will ‘‘pick up the topic later inthe curriculum’’ and basic general education students do not have the political knowl-edge to know what they are missing. This attitude demonstrates the need to begindetermining how we, as the academy, can better teach the important topic of thebureaucracy to undergraduate students. Many programs allow students to graduatewithout taking any public administration courses—meaning that even majors at someschools will only experience the bureaucracy in their introductory course, if at all! Thecomplex topic tests students given its depth and breadth in American government.Your local trash collector and the FBI agent conducting intelligence analysis in theMiddle East both fall under its umbrella, along with countless positions in between.What we have attempted to demonstrate in this article is that the bureaucracy isnot properly represented in the American public. A divide exists between the percep-tion of how Americans feel about bureaucracy and how they actually feel. Upon enter-ing college, many students do not possess the background, high school governmentknowledge of bureaucracy that they do of other institutions of government. Whilethey may have experienced the bureaucracy many times in their lives, it is not alwaysa given that they truly understood when they were interacting with bureaucratic agentsor agencies. The typical understanding of the bureaucracy is shaped by the popularmyths and misunderstandings discussed throughout the beginning of the article. Whilethe DMV and highway patrol may be proper examples of the bureaucracy at work,such encounters do not always encourage all that is good with bureaucratic agents.

Faculty members have offered various techniques to potentially increase aware-ness of the bureaucracy in an introductory course. Some have offered scrapping thetextbook chapters and instead utilizing outside readings, such as Charles Goodsell’sThe Case for Bureaucracy. Yet, such an outside reading may be burdensome forfreshmen students or draw too much time and attention to bureaucracy (which isnot our goal). Including Stillman’s chapter on bureaucratic pathologies could be use-ful but again would require additional outside readings in an already tight schedule.Likewise, some respondents discussed how MPA textbooks include cases that areboth positive and negative in context. By adding a few positive cases that aredynamic and memorable, we may be able to cancel out the negative effects ofKatrina stories that dominate the newest wave of textbooks. A textbook author—whose book is in its 9th edition—noted during the survey that his bureaucracychapter is entirely descriptive with no theoretical background and that by adding

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an overall context of governance (such as delivering services and enforcing regula-tions) to the introduction of the chapter may assist students in properly contextualiz-ing the bureaucracy as a function of money, people, and practices. All methodsshould be examined and considered, as an individual faculty member’s pedagogicalbeliefs will ultimately shape what works in his or her classroom.

Our survey results demonstrate that faculty members that teach bureaucracy toundergraduate students admit that the topic presents significant challenges. How-ever, rather than simply continuing forward with the status quo, it is imperativeto begin examining methods and ways to better teach the subject matter. Only bybeing proactive and determining effective methods to help students untangle thecomplex web that is the American bureaucracy can we hope to have students leavetheir undergraduate programs with a more complete understanding of the segmentof government they will experience every day. Negative myths permeate throughoutmajor elements of society; however, it is up to the college professor to help studentssee the positive side of bureaucracy. Much like Jessica Rabbit speaks of Roger,bureaucrats are not bad, they are merely drawn that way.

References

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Building.Cigler, Beverly A. and Heidi L. Neiswender. 1991. ‘‘Bureaucracy in the Introductory American

Government Textbook.’’ Public Administration Review 51(September=October): 442–450.Cows & Politics Explained. About.com: Political Humor. http://politicalhumor.about.com/

library/jokes/bljokecowspolitics.htmCrozier, Michel. 1964. The Bureaucratic Phenomenon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Denhardt, Robert B. 2001. ‘‘The Big Questions of Public Administration Education.’’ Public

Administration Review 61(September=October): 526–534.Eccles, Marriner. 1951. Beckoning Frontiers, ed. Sidney Hyman. New York: Alfred Knopf.Goodsell, Charles T. 1985. The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic.

Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.Hall, Thad E. 2002. ‘‘Live Bureaucrats andDead Public Servants: How People inGovernment are

Discussed on the Floor of the House.’’ Public Administration Review 62(March): 242–251.Holzer, Marc and Linda G. Slater. 1995. ‘‘Insights into Bureaucracy from Film: Visualizing

Stereotypes.’’ In Public Administration Illuminated and Inspired by the Arts, pp. 75–90,eds. Charles T. Goodsell and Nancy Murray. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Hummel, Ralph P. 2000. ‘‘Bureaucracy.’’ In Defining Public Administration, pp. 121–127, ed.Jay Shafritz. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Lee, Moredcai. 2000. ‘‘Reporters and Bureaucrats: Public Relations Counter-Strategies byPublic Administrators in an Era of Media Disinterest in Government.’’ Public RelationsReview 25(4): 451–463.

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Meier, Kenneth John and Lloyd G. Nigro. 1976. ‘‘Representative Bureaucracy and PolicyPreferences A Study in the Attitudes of Federal Executives.’’ Public AdministrationReview 36(4): 458–469.

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Appendix 1: Survey Instrument

1. What is your personal definition of bureaucracy?2. What (if anything) do you believe makes the bureaucracy more difficult to teach

than other topics in American government?3. What (if anything) do you believe makes the bureaucracy more difficult to

understand by students than other topics in American government?4. Do you believe that the fact that there is no constitutional basis for the bureauc-

racy (as opposed to Congress being rooted in Article I, the President in Article II,and the federal judiciary in Article III) makes the bureaucracy more difficult toteach or understand?

5. Do you believe that the fact there is less ability to relate to the bureaucraciesthan to identifiable public figures (as we can with the Presidency by lookingat Bush, Lincoln, or JFK, for example) makes the bureaucracy more difficultto teach or understand?

6. When discussing the bureaucracy with students, what do you believe the bestexamples and=or adjectives to portray bureaucracy are? What makes these thebest examples? Are there examples and=or adjectives you feel are less optimalto utilize in class? Why?

7. Do you find that students typically view the bureaucracy in a positive or nega-tive light? Why do you believe this is?

8. How important do you believe understanding the bureaucracy is to understand-ing American government? Why?

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey. Your responses arevery important to us. This survey instrument gives you an opportunity to voiceyour opinions and send us feedback about teaching the subject matter of theAmerican bureaucracy. The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete. All ofyour responses will remain entirely anonymous. If you have any questions, feelfree to contact Will Miller at xxx@xxxxxxx.xxx or call at (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

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