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The Federal Bureaucracy:

The Federal Bureaucracy:. What is it and how is it organized?. Bureaucracy: Definition. The government organizations, usually staffed with officials selected on the basis of experience and expertise, that implement public policy Hierarchical organization into specialized staffs

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The Federal Bureaucracy:

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  1. The Federal Bureaucracy: What is it and how is it organized?

  2. Bureaucracy: Definition • The government organizations, usually staffed with officials selected on the basis of experience and expertise, that implement public policy • Hierarchical organization into specialized staffs • Free of political accountability (non-partisan) • Still affected by Congressional budget and oversight • Ideal scenario?

  3. Bureaucracy • What does it do? • From protecting the environment to collecting revenue to regulating the economy • American bureaucracies implement a $2 trillion budget • Vague lines of authority allow some areas of the bureaucracy to operate with a significant amount of autonomy

  4. Growth of the Federal Bureaucracy • 1789 – 50 federal government employees • 2000 – 2.8 million (excluding military, subcontractors, and consultants who also work for federal government) • Growth mainly at state and local level since 1970 • Federal government began devolving powers and services to state and local government • Total federal, state, local employees – roughly 21 million people

  5. Organization of Bureaucracy • A complex society requires a variety of bureaucratic organizations • Four components of Federal Bureaucracy: • Cabinet departments (State, Defense) • Independent executive agencies (EPA) • Independent regulatory agencies (Federal Reserve Board) • Government organizations (USPS, FDIC, TVA)

  6. Staffing the Bureaucracy • Natural Aristocracy • Thomas Jefferson fired Federalist employees and placed his own men in government positions • Spoils System • Andrew Jackson used government positions to reward supporters • Bureaucracy became corrupt, bloated, and inefficient

  7. Civil Service Reform • Pendleton Act of 1883 • Employment on the basis of merit and open, competitive exams • Civil Service Commission to administer the personnel service • Hatch Act of 1939 • Civil service employees cannot take an active party in the political management of campaigns • Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinios (1990) • Court ruled that partisan political considerations as the basis for hiring, promoting, or transferring public employees was illegal

  8. Political Control of Bureaucracy • Who should control the bureaucracy? • Bureaucracy should be responsive to elected officials (Congress, the President) • Members of the bureaucracy are not elected, and must be held accountable for their actions • Making them responsive to elected officials give the public a voice in bureaucratic operations • The bureaucracy should be free from political pressures • They should be autonomous

  9. Theories of Bureaucratic Politics • Politics-Administration Dichotomy • Bureaucracy should be free of politics • Iron Triangles • Interest groups • Congressional subcommittees • Bureaucratic agencies • Issue Networks • Principal-Agent Model

  10. Politics-Administration Dichotomy • Wilson: Bureaucracy is neutral and not political • Bureaucrats are experts in their specialties and must be left alone to do their job without political interference • However, people began to realize that politics and administration were NOT separate • Norton Long: “Power is the lifeblood of administration”

  11. Iron Triangles • Reinforcing relationship between: • Interest Groups • Congressional Subcommittees • Bureaucratic agencies • Policy decisions are made jointly by these three groups who feed off each other to develop and maintain long-term, regularized relationships

  12. Issue Networks • The relationship between bureaucracy is not as rigid as iron triangle theory would have us believe • Also, more than three actors involved in process • For every issue, there are also a number of political elites who are involved (and who know each other via the issue) • Members of Congress, congressional committees, the president, advocacy groups, and “issue watchers” (like academics or highly interested citizens)

  13. Principal-Agent Model • Who are principals, who are agents? • Principals and agents both seek to maximize their interests • Principals want to control bureaucracy • Agents want to have the least amount of control exerted over it • To keep agents in check, two possibilities: • Monitoring/oversight • Minimizing goal conflict

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