8. Work for the Bureaucracy: its F L E X T I M E !!!

1. 8. Work for the Bureaucracy: its F L E X T I M E !!! From: A Novel Approach to Politics

2. Take out a piece of paper… • How do you interact with the American bureaucracy? • Do those interactions follow certain patterns? If so, what is the pattern? • How much agency (the ability to do something) and power (the influence of your doing) do you, as an individual, have on the American bureaucracy? THEME: Collective Action Problems (CAPs)!

3. Bureaucracy: “Your CAPs” • Many of us find interacting with bureaucracies to be frustrating or practically amazing: Passport. • This has less to do with their flaws, and more to do with their ideals of strict adherence to rule-based actions—processes, procedures…yes; Regulation. • Bureaucracies administer government: They implement legislation—and evaluate it. Collective Action Problems (CAPs)!

4. The Ideals of Bureaucratic Governance • Max Weber (1864–1920) recognized that modern nation-states need bureaucracies. • He argued that an ideal bureaucracy should be rational and efficient. • Clear assignment of roles: Clear organization avoids both duplication of effort and gaps in the process. • Hierarchy: Top-down and Bottom-up. • Power: Who gets what, when, and how.

5. Google Image Search: www.smartcitymemphis.com

6. “western” Bureaucratic Governance • Rules: Rules ensure that decisions are impersonal and consistent and avoid favoring or discriminating. • Hierarchy: A clear hierarchy allows for effective control of the bureaucracy and for handling challenges to the rule-based decision making. • Professionals: The recruitment and promotion of personnel on the basis of merit helps to make sure the right people are in the optimum positions.

7. Your Bureaucratic Roles Bureaucratic Roles Bureaucracies (Strong) function: • Service: providing services such as education, health care, welfare programs, parks; • Regulation: watching over particular segments of the economy (e.g., the Food and Drug Administration or the Securities and Exchange Commission); • Hence, bureaucracies in “modern democracies” claim sole legitimate authority in representative government (i.e. free and fair elections: Dahl), and they people may not get their top CAP solutions for long periods of time (e.g., opinion data versus deliberative opinions)

8. The Iron Triangle • Bureaucracies can be “captured” so that they focus on the needs of interest groups rather than the public interest. • These iron triangles can be very powerful and all but impenetrable by outside actors: problem with not admitting new policy entrepreneurs!

9. Google Image Search: www.tdaxp.com The Iron Triangle

10. Implementation: making sure that laws get put in place and determining all of the relevant details • Yeah, that $1M project just turned into $9.6M. • Policymaking: handling the specifics of general laws passed by legislatures. New laws to keep up with societal transformation—pragmatic CAPs. • New policymaking needed since the evaluation of the last thing implemented demonstrated gross negligence of “common good / median voter” maximization. • Evaluation: Pork (i.e. mandates as riders on a bill to allocate funds to the congressperson’s district) may not be subject to “An evaluation by your government’s bureaucracy!” Does it lead to “corruption?”

11. There Be Flaws in Yonder Bureaucracy, Obviously • Democracies are supposed to be responsive to the public. See: • Bureaucracies are designed to be consistent, not responsive. This is a potential problem. • Innovation may be weak or ignored.

12. Overhead Democracy Google Image Search: nexusilluminati.blogspot.com Overhead democracy occurs when elected officials, who are accountable to the public, are put at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy.

13. Authority Leakage • Authority leakage occurs when efforts to control a bureaucracy become distorted as each level interprets ambiguities and makes adjustments to fit its ability to implement (e.g., top-down shirking). • It is almost impossible for the top of the hierarchy to direct the outputs at the bottom consistently and effectively (i.e. Top Down). Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches

14. Agency Theory and the Responsive Bureaucracy • Agency theory, or the principal-agent model, asserts that bureaucracies work like contractors to the legislature. • Elected officials do not have to monitor bureaucracies closely, they just need to monitor the results and keep an eye out for problems. • This explains how bureaucracies do adjust to the will of elected officials and the public.

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16. Scarcity Bureaucracies struggle against other demands for limited government funds. Those that fail to meet their public service demands or draw critical attention could have their budgets cut. The goal is to avoid negative attention (from the media or elsewhere). Bureaucracies thus monitor their own behavior accordingly. Scary

17. Take out a piece of paper… Regulate media to make it more equitable and efficient for the median voter…class break…write down how a Liberal, Independent, and Republican might accomplish that… 5 min. writing. 7 minute discussion.

18. Answer 1. What is a new way for people to impact the transformation of the bureaucracy? • Technology? • Local, state, national? 2. Do interest groups in Washington D.C. “represent” the average American? If not, then who?