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Set Up: Bureaucracies

Set Up: Bureaucracies. PS 202 -- American Political Institutions and Processes. Fall 2001. Inside the Box of Bureaucracy: Four Perspectives on Organization. Efficiency Maximizing Organizations with Conforming Individuals Max Weber (Sociology - legitimacy from legal authority)

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Set Up: Bureaucracies

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  1. Set Up: Bureaucracies PS 202 -- American Political Institutions and Processes Fall 2001

  2. Inside the Box of Bureaucracy:Four Perspectives on Organization • Efficiency Maximizing Organizations with Conforming Individuals • Max Weber (Sociology - legitimacy from legal authority) • Ronald Coase (transaction cost and contractual economics) • Inefficient Organizations with Utility Maximizing Individuals • Anthony Downs (typology of bureaucrats’ motivations) • William Niskanen, Gordon Tullock (social choice formal models) • Organizations as Social Enterprises with Satisficing Individuals • Herbert Simon (decision making and bounded rationality) • Richard Cyert and James March (behavioral theory of the firm) • Potential Integration: New Economics of Organization • Principal-Agent Theory (Information asymmetry, adverse selection, moral hazard)

  3. Conventional View of the Executive Branch in Government Chief Executive Cabinet (Department Heads) The Bureaucracy

  4. Context: Federal Bureaucracy in the “Web of Politics” Executive Authority Statutory Authority, Appropriations Congress President Tools:  Nominations  President’s Budget  Regulatory Review  Privatization  Devolution Tools:  Creation Confirmations  Appropriations  Oversight Executive Branch Agencies Political (Appointment) Executive Levels I-Secretary II-Deputy Secretary III-Under Secretary IV-Assistant Secretary V-General Counsel, etc. Senior Executive Service(SES) (up to 10% of SES) Schedule C (GS-15 & below) (policy determining) Career (Competitive Service) Senior Executive Service (SES) (At least 90% of SES) GS Supergrade 16-18 GS 1-15 Public/Constituents Interest Groups

  5. Four Images of Bureaucrat and Politician Roles • Image I: Policy/Administration • Politicians Make Policy (Decision Making) • Civil Servants Administer Policy (Implementation) • Image II: Facts/Interests Both Participate in Policy Making, But: • Politicians Bring Interests and Values (Political Sensitivity) • Civil Servants Bring Facts and Knowledge (Neutral Expertise) • Image III: Energy/Equilibrium Both Participate in Policy Making, and Both Concerned with Politics, But: • Politicians Articulate Broad Interests of Unorganized Individuals • Civil Servants Mediate Narrow, Focused Interests of Organized Clienteles • Image IV: The Pure Hybrid • “Bureaucratization” of Politics • “Politicization” of Bureaucracy Joel Aberbach, Robert Putnam, and Bert Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicans in Western Democracies, 1981.

  6. Nine Possible Roles of Bureaucrats and Politicians Under Image I, Who Performs Which Roles? Bureaucrats Politicians X • Technician -- Solving technical problems and applying specialized knowledge • Advocate -- Fighting for or representing the interests of a class, group, or cause • Legalist -- Focusing on legal processes or legalistic definitions of one’s responsibilities • Broker -- Mediating or resolving political conflicts and conflicts among interests • Trustee -- Representing the state, the general interest • Facilitator -- Protecting the interests of specific clientele groups or constituents • Partisan -- Focusing on partisan politics • Policy Maker -- Focusing on formulating public policy • Ombudsman -- Undertaking casework for individual clients or constituents X X X X X X ? formulating X X Joel Aberbach, Robert Putnam, and Bert Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicans in Western Democracies, 1981.

  7. Role Focus of Bureaucrats and Politicians in Seven Western Democracies Joel Aberbach, Robert Putnam, and Bert Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicans in Western Democracies, 1981, Figure 4-1.

  8. Rank-Order Similarities in Bureaucratic and Political Role Focus Country Spearman’s rho Coefficient .82 United States .35 Sweden Germany .32 Britain .31 .13 Netherlands École Nationale D’Administration École Polytecnique .04 France Italy .03 Joel Aberbach, Robert Putnam, and Bert Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicans in Western Democracies, 1981, Figure 4-2.

  9. Bureaucracy as a Political Structure “American public bureaucracy is not designed to be effective. The bureaucracy arises out of politics, and its design reflects the interests, strategies, and compromises of those who exercise political power….[C]hoices about bureaucratic structure are not matters that can be separated off from [political interests], to be guided by technical criteria of efficiency and effectiveness. Structural choices have important consequences for the content and direction of policy, and political actors know it. When they make choices about structure, they are implicitly making choices about policy. And precisely because this is so, issues of structure get caught up in the larger political struggle.” Terry Moe, “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure,” pp. 267-268.

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