Bureaucracy

Size and Scope

President

Cabinet Departments Ind. Executive Agencies

White House Staff Executive Office of the President

Independent Regulatory Commissions

Independent Govt. Corporations

The Politics of Agency Structure

Creating agency = issue’s importance Structure (degree of independence from

executive, cabinet departments) can– Affect policy-making latitude– Allow non-political considerations (like efficiency) to

take center stage

The Politics of Agency Structure:The Unitary Executive

Remember Hamilton: unified, or unitary, executive necessary for “energy”

Structure of agencies affects unitary executive– Unitary executive goal of first Bush pres– Others prefer “plausible deniability”

The Politics of Agency Structure:The Regulated Interests

Agency devoted to your issue means it is important, gives you visibility

Iron triangles – don’t want to disturb these relationships!

What Bureaucratic Agencies Do

Short answer: implement laws and policies Inspection and Enforcement Rule-making Adjudication Legislation Litigation

Forces Affecting Bureaucratic Action

Congress– “Oversight”– Funding– Legislative mandates

President– “Unitary executive”– Appointment and removal

Clientele– “Iron triangles”

Problem # 1: Slow and Inefficient

Congress and President try to maintain CONTROL– Prevent “policy slippage”

Fairness and equal treatment “One person’s red tape may be another’s

treasured procedural safeguard.”

Problem # 2: Ineffective

Impossible tasks– Complex social problems– Goals vague and changing

Results difficult to measure– What would conditions be like in the absence of

agency action?– What could the agency reasonably accomplish with

its resources?

Problem # 3: Slow to Change, Prone to Expansion and Waste

“Parochialism” (narrow perspective) Self-Interest

– Desire for a big budget– Desire for more personnel– Desire for control over visible policy areas

Example – War on Drugs– Leads to redundancy and waste

Point of View– Internal culture– Who is drawn to work with the agency?– Interaction with clientele

Ways to “Fix” the Bureaucracy(and Why They Don’t Work)

Termination (simply cut whole agencies)– Political backlash from clientele

Deregulation– “Works” – but we sometimes miss the regulation

Devolution– Creates flexibility, but also inequality

Privatization– Private firms not always more efficient– Additional oversight required increases costs– Political backlash from lost fed jobs– Many of the functions of government don’t translate into private action