Executive Politics: The Dilemmas of the President Professor Jonathan Day The Presidency (POLS 318)

Outline 1. Overview 2. What is the Bureaucracy? 3. Dilemmas for the President 4. Paper Assignment 5. Next Week

What is the Bureaucracy? Bureaucracy is the combined organizational structure, procedures, protocols, and set of regulations in place to manage activity, usually in large organizations

The Size of the Bureaucracy 2.67 million civilian federal employees, 1.4 million active duty military personnel. Federal Budget is approximately 2.98 trillion dollars. 15 million people receive salaries from the federal government when you take into account grants, contracts, and state/local employees working on government funding

Dilemma #1 – Staffing the Bureaucracy The president must staff the bureaucracy, but he has to consider the following: Loyalty – how loyal the person influences whether the wishes of the president gets accomplished Expertise – the more skills a person has the more likely they will be able to get the job done Clean Record – no tax problems, legal problems, or other problems

Dilemma #2 – Size of the Bureaucracy The larger the country gets, the larger the bureaucracy that is needed. The problem: The larger the bureaucracy, the harder it is to control. The smaller the bureaucracy, the less they are able to do.

Dilemma #3 – Organizing the Bureaucracy There are two main ways that you can organize the bureaucracy Centralized – bring agencies into departments Decentralized – have many different independent agencies The problem: The more decentralized, the harder it is for agencies to communicate with each other. The more centralized, the harder it is for the president to communicate to the agency.

Dilemma #4 – Clarity in Communication The president must send clear instructions for them to be followed. The problem: The president does not have the time to make every request clearly known. Bureaucratic officials have to take into account the president’s requests with the current regulations.

Dilemma #5 – Consistency in Communication The president has to be consistent in there communication to bureaucratic officials. The problem: The president has competing interests and so it is difficult to remain consistent on every request Example: The Immigration of Naturalization Service was supposed to keep out illegal immigrants, but allow necessary agricultural workers; screen foreigners seeking to enter, but facilitate entry of foreign tourists, expel illegal aliens, but do not break up families, impose hardships, or violate civil rights, or deprive employers of low-paid workers

Dilemma #6 – Transmission of Information The president requests certain actions to be done by agencies or bureaucratic officials. The problem: The bureaucratic officials ignore the information or do not know how to transmit the information

Paper Assignment Handout

Next Class Read Chapter 6, “Executive Politics” in Politics of the Presidency