Chapter 15 Bureaucracy

How the Bureaucracy Grew Before the rise of the bureaucracy, government jobs were distributed as spoils, or political rewards. Reformers challenged this system and eventually built a national bureaucracy. The ideal bureaucracy has five characteristics: hierarchy, division of labor, fixed routines, equal rules for all, and technical expertise. Bureaucracies are prone to pathologies, like hewing too closely to a routine, fighting over turf, favoring some clients over others, and refusing to coordinate. These are all exaggerations of the very features that make bureaucracies efficient. Because they rely on specialized expertise and information, bureaucracies pose a dilemma for democratic governance.

What Bureaucracies Do Once a law is passed or an executive order is signed, the program goes to the bureaucracy to be put into effect. Bureaucrats propose rules, publish them in the Federal Register, gather comments, rewrite the rules, and publish the final version. The law or executive order is now in effect. At every step of the process, lawyers and lobbyists interact with the bureaucracy; this interaction engages experts far from the political limelight. Bureaucratic officials take part in every step of the political process— from proposing legislation to putting it into effect.

How the Bureaucracy Is Organized The federal bureaucracy includes five different types of agencies. The fifteen cabinet departments, forming the largest group, employ roughly 1.8 million civilians. The government includes four other kinds of bureaucracies: executive agencies focus on one type of issue, like environmental quality; independent regulatory commissions oversee specific industries; central service agencies staff and supply the entire bureaucracy; and private contractors are licensed to provide goods and services for the government. Different kinds of agencies face different political problems and challenges. The president appoints a small number of executives; the rest are members of the permanent civil service. The cabinet has grown far more diverse in the past twenty-five years. The cabinet and other appointed executives provide political direction; the civil servants provide expertise and continuity. Among the many challenges to a smoothly functioning system is the time—often more than a year—that it takes a new administration to get its leadership team in place.

Who Controls the Federal Bureaucracy? In a democracy, the public must ultimately control the government bureaucracy. The question is how. Different actors exert some influence over the bureaucracy: the president (who names the leaders), Congress (through funding and oversight), and interest groups. Bureaucrats still operate with considerable autonomy, especially those at the “street level.”

Reforming the Bureaucracy Critics of the bureaucracy focus on cost, inertia, and public mistrust. Solutions include sunshine reforms, reinventing government to make it more constituent-friendly, and privatizing some of its functions.