American Political and Bureaucratic ValuesBureaucratic Politics

American Political Values

• Limited government – government that is subject to strict limits on its lawful use of power. • The framers did this through:

• Checks and balances • Checks on the bureaucracy:

• Legislative oversight – the process by which a legislative body supervises or oversees the work of the bureaucracy in order to ensure its conformity with legislative intent.• Legislative intent – the goals, purposes, and

objectives of a legislative body, given concrete form in its enactments.

• Executive oversight• Judicial oversight

• Separation of Powers – government power is divided among separate branches and levels of government.• Legislative (Congress) make law• Executive (President) enforce law• Judiciary (courts) interpret law• Federalism (further division of governmental power)

• To help speed up the process of government, each branch has handed a small slice of its power over to the bureaucracy:• Rulemaking (legislative power)• Adjudication (judicial power)• Enforcement (executive power)

• Because the bureaucracy possesses power from all branches of government it therefore has an advantage in that control from its “superiors” is decentralized.• Bureaucracy favors centralized authority.

American Political Values

• Representative Democracy – system of government in which people participate in the decision making process of government, not directly, but indirectly through the election of officials to represent their interests.• Values:

• Participatory• Accountability

• Two parts to the term – representative and democracy• Democracy

• Are unelected officials that make decisions that affect our everyday lives a violation of democracy? • What about judges?• Maybe representativeness helps alleviate this problem.

• Representativeness – groups should be represented in government positions in proportion to their numbers in the population.• Two possible meanings:

• Demographically representative• If the bureaucracy represents the demographic makeup of the general public then perhaps it will do a better job in

representing those groups.• Ideologically representative

• This will clash with the administrative value of bureaucratic neutrality (Wilson).

• If it should be representative, what form should the representation take?• Trustee discretion (after all they are the experts in their respective fields)• Delegate (clientelism)

American Political Values

• Capitalism – an economic system in which the means of production are owned by private citizens.• United States built on the notions of a capitalist economy.• Promotes laissez-faire economics in its pure form.• How does the federal bureaucracy go against this?• Promotes government involvement through regulation• Also government ownership of the means of production.• Government corporations• USPS• Amtrak

• Government acquired corporations• General Motors• AIG (American International Group)

American Political Values

• Pluralism – a social and political concept stressing the appropriateness of group organization, and diversity of groups and their activities, as a means of protecting broad group interest in society.• The idea that society’s interests are represented through interest groups.• Does this help or hinder agencies? • Helps• Each group would like to have an agency or even a department to represent its interests.

Recall our discussion on choosing a structure for a new governmental organization.• These public interest groups in turn help keep the agencies in power as they have a vested

interest in the services or purpose of the agency.• Hinders• Interest group battles over the structure of the agency create an agency that is inefficient

and ineffective. (Moe)

American Political Values

• Responsiveness – government should be responsive to the demands of the public.• Is the bureaucracy responsive to the demands of the public?• Perhaps an agency responds to the demands of a small portion of the

public.• Is it too responsive? (agency capture)• Of course this relates to pluralism

• How aware is the general public of what agencies do? • If so, how can agencies be responsive to a public that

doesn’t know what it wants?

Administrative Values

• Politics and administration are separate and distinct (Wilson).• This is in contradiction to responsiveness and representativeness where the

general public would say that they should respond to the officials that were elected.

• Partisan politics should not affect the management of programs.• Contradiction to checks and balances.• Would not allow political principals to hold members of the bureaucracy in check.

• Public administration is not merely machinery for implementing decisions by other government institutions.• Administrators have the authority and power to make decisions.• Administrative discretion – the ability of individual administrators to make significant

choices affecting management and operation of programs for which they are responsible.

Administrative Values

• Administrative efficiency• Clashes with constitutional values mentioned above that

stressed inefficiency and a slow government.• Also contrasts with pluralism in which factions fight for

power and prevent radical changes. (inefficient)• Administrative expertise• Democracy places governing power in the hands of

individuals.• Administration believes that expertise should guide decision

making.