1. Chapter 4: Official actors and their roles
An Introduction to the Policy Process
Chapter 4: Official actors and their roles

2. Overview
Understand the difference between official and unofficial actors
Understand official and unofficial actors in the policy process
Prepare to understand the role of interest groups and power in policy making

3. Approaches to politics and policy
Institutionalism
Behaviorism
Neoinstitutionalism
Changes in understanding of what “institution” means

4. Official and unofficial actors in public policy
What are official actors? What makes them “official”?
What are unofficial actors? What makes them “unofficial”?
Are one set of actors more “legitimate” than another?

5. The traditional institutionalist view of formal institutions
Automatically have power and authority
Are relatively stable—monolithic?
Have the final say in policy debate
Their decisions are accepted
Interest groups are petitioners or sometimes supplicants

6. A more realistic view
Power and authority must be earned and reinforced
Are broadly stable, but are not at all monolithic
Do not issue the final word—decisions often lead to countermobilization

7. A more realistic view
Power and authority must be earned and reinforced
Are broadly stable, but are not at all monolithic
Do not issue the final word—decisions often lead to countermobilization
Countermobilization is proof that decisions are not final, and not always accepted
Interests and members of formal institutions work together, not apart, in pursuit of goals
This looks more like the behaviorist approach

8. The Constitution and the People (really?)
Hierarchy? Or network?
The Constitution and the People (really?)
Executive
The Bureaucracy
Legislative
Judicial
Lower Courts

9. Hierarchy? Or network?
Coalition 2
Coalition 1
Legis-lators
Legis-lators
Mediated by policy brokers or policy entrepreneurs
News Media
Agencies
News Media
Agencies
Groups
Groups
Experts
Experts
This is a new slide, intended to illustrate how government, in particular, is not monolithic.
Parties
Parties

10. Official actors Legislative branch
Executive branch (president, governor)
The bureaucracy
Judicial branch (courts)

11. Legislative branch Why does Article I come first? Make laws
Does this rationale still hold today?
Make laws
Hold hearings
Perform oversight over the executive branch
Do casework for constituents
What are the power advantages and disadvantages of the legislative branch?

12. Concurrent resolutions
105th Congress ( )
110th Congress ( )
House
Senate
Bills
4,874
2,655
7,336
3741
Joint resolutions
140 60
101
107
Concurrent resolutions
354
130
442 46
Table 4.1: Bills, Amendments, Joint Resolutions, and Concurrent Resolutions in the 105th and 110th Congresses

13. Assessing legislative activity
Multiple bill introductions
Many bills are symbolic
Many introduced to serve constituent interests
How do we know what’s “on the agenda” just from a count of bills?
Why does it matter what’s on Congress’s agenda?
Is the volume of legislation the best measure of overall activity?

14. Casework
Where do people take their problems with the federal government?
To where do they appeal if their initial complaints aren’t heard?
Why do members of Congress encourage casework?
How might casework be useful in the policy process?

15. Oversight What is oversight? Why has it become more important?
Congress’s oversight tools
Hearings
Communications from
Constituents
Interest groups
News media
GAO, CBO, CRS

16. Organization of the legislative branch
Parties
Elect the presiding officer or speaker
Determine who sits on committees
Committees
Chairs are very powerful
Screen bills
Set the legislative agenda
Is the Congress centralized? Or decentralized?
Evidence in favor?
Evidence against?

17. Public policy and critiques of the legislature
Are legislatures out of touch with the people?
Are legislatures too slow? Do they suffer from gridlock?
Members and reelection
Congress as a decentralized institution
Congress as a localized, constituency-serving institution – examples?

18. Implications “Gridlock” or deliberation?
Major change requires major social movements
More focus casework, oversight, and distributive spending
The House, in particular, may favor local interests over national interests
Over 80% of Americans think that incumbents should lose their seats
Yet, the vast majority of incumbents are reelected
Why?

19. How does this matter for public policy?
How does the legislative branch identify and handle problems?
Is the legislative branch solely focused on finding and fixing problems?
What motivates its members?
How does Congress handle its rather extensive workload?
What are the implications for policy making?

20. The executive branch Chief executive (President, Governor)
Staff (about 3000 appointed officials)
We consider the permanent civil service (“bureaucracy”) separately from the top level

21. Presidential advantages over Congress
The veto power
The head of a unitary branch
Considerable power shifted toward the executive branch during
The Civil War
The New Deal
World War II
Cold War
Great Society

22. Presidential advantages over Congress
Attracts a lot of media and public attention—can “go public” (the “Bully Pulpit”)
Has informational advantages over other branches
Therefore, has significant agenda-setting power

23. Constraints on the President’s power
Inability to force action
Sheer size of his staff
“Going native”
Turnover
The will of the other branches
Appointments
Courts
The permanent bureaucracy
Result: the president may be more involved in agenda setting than in selecting alternative policies

24. Agencies and Bureaucrats
What is a bureaucracy?
Division of labor
Impersonal, unbiased rules
Staff expertise among civil servants
Obvious hierarchy
What is a civil servant?
Selected on merit
Possess technical knowledge
What motivates civil servants?

25. Is the Bureaucracy (that is, the government) too Big?
1999:
2.79 million civilian employees
$1.8 trillion budget
4.47% of Americans work for all government (2.09% work for the federal government), according to U.S. BLS
2008
2.73 million civilian employees (slight decline)
About $3.0 trillion budget
4.65% of Americans work for all government (1.88% work for the federal government)
How do we measure too big?

26. Figure 4.2: Overall Federal Outlays, 1940-2014, Current and Constant Dollars

27. Figure 4.3: Federal Government Outlays as Percentage of GDP, 1940-2014

28. Figure 4.4: Federal Government Outlays Per Capita, Constant Dollars, 1940 to 2014

29. Figure 4.5: Total Number of State and Local Government Employees, 1992-2006

30. Figure 4.6: Number of Federal Civilian Employees, 1981-2010

31. Figure 4.7: Comparative Growth of the Federal Budget and Federal Employment, 1981-2010

32. Policy implications
Since at least 2008, deficits and debt have grown quickly.
What accounts for this growth?
The number of employees is flat, while spending has grown very fast
Why?
Do we have “big government”? How, or how do we not?

33. What do government agencies do?
Provide public goods
Why must government provide such goods?
Examples?
Provide services that people may not want provided by the private sector
Electricity
Phone
Water

34. Bureaucracy and accountability
Bureaucrats are not elected, yet they make policy
Bureaucrats are supposed to act in the “public interest”
What is the “public interest”?
Bureaucrats are given more or less discretion based on
Expertise
Authority
Leadership
Political acceptability
The problem of agency “capture”
Agencies compete for attention and discretion

35. The courts Hamilton: “The least Dangerous Branch”
The courts are neither impotent nor all powerful.
Rely on enforcement by other actors—executive and legislative branches, private actors.
Why are most court decisions respected?

36. The courts The Courts do make policy
Remember the definition of public policy
Their logic: legal reasoning, judicial review
The courts are undemocratic institutions
But, was our republic designed as a democracy?
How does one balance popular will with constitutional limit?
What would our system look like without judicial review?
Are courts very influential as policy makers?

37. Implications for policy
Policy change is slow, and takes time to develop
Coalition building is important
The institutions are important gatekeepers, but are not the only participants