1. 8. Work for the Bureaucracy: its F L E X T I M E !!!
FLEXTIME: I am referring to the government’s “flextime” program. For instance, at the DoD, a worker can work 10 hours a day, Week 1 and Week 2, and 10 hours a day Monday and Tuesday in Week 3. Then, because of Flextime (you cannot get paid overtime), the worker can take-off Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in week 3. Flextime belongs to the bureaucracy. I end: “Ideas from the class: Should all businesses integrate “felxtime”? Don’t millenials prefer flextime to overtime?
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)!
Lecture: Do you need a passport within 72 hours? It just costs more. US bureaucracy very small compared to other more developed countries, based on merit for many decades, and is highly efficient—if underfunded and underdeveloped. Bureaucracy is necessary because you don’t want some activities privatized—like passports—and you also don’t expect the government to contract passports out to other countries.
Regulation in a liberal state is designed to increase free (and possibly fair) capitalism. Like, the bureaucracy does not provide you your food in a liberal state; but it makes sure that the food distributers adhere to rules and regulations to protect your health.
CAPs—people need to be healthy and educated. In a liberal state, we expect the bureaucracy to keep collective action problems from getting worse.

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)!
Lecture: Do you need a passport within 72 hours? It just costs more. US bureaucracy very small compared to other more developed countries, based on merit for many decades, and is highly efficient—if underfunded and underdeveloped. Bureaucracy is necessary because you don’t want some activities privatized—like passports—and you also don’t expect the government to contract passports out to other countries.
Regulation in a liberal state is designed to increase free (and possibly fair) capitalism. Like, the bureaucracy does not provide you your food in a liberal state; but it makes sure that the food distributers adhere to rules and regulations to protect your health.
CAPs—people need to be healthy and educated. In a liberal state, we expect the bureaucracy to keep collective action problems from getting worse.

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.
This would be a good time to go over the history on an issue (like endangered species) and the history of bureaucratic interactions over time regarding said issue.

5. Google Image Search: www.smartcitymemphis.com
Delegation of authority to specialized groups is often essential; however, shirking and other adverse effects might arise.
Google Image Search:

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
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?”
Bureaucracies are, importantly, responsible for policy evaluation—seeing if public policy which the taxpayers are paying for is working like it was designed to work. However, “pork” (only about 3% of the budget) may be exempt from bureaucratic evaluation. This might 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.
Economic gardening is a new municipal economic development strategy in America. In short, local officials may hire economic development specialists to work with local second stage businesses in order to rapidly expand. Like, the local government might employ 1 person to research local economic activity (part of the bureaucracy) in order to facilitate economic growth between local businesses and economic development specialists. See C. Gibbons at Littleton, Colorado.

12. Overhead Democracy
Overhead democracy occurs when elected officials, who are accountable to the public, are put at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy.
A deeper fear of overhead democracy goes back to “competitive authoritarianism.” Here, states use the bureaucracy to manipulate capitalism—to make it unfair and unfree, and there may be evidence of the government shutting down competition in order to favor special interests / or interest groups. So, elected officials may control the bureaucracy—and the fear is that elected officials will not represent constituents or the median voter; rather, elected officials will protect their reelection prospects via corruption.
Google Image Search:
nexusilluminati.blogspot.com

13. Authority Leakage Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches
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).
Link describes the political science of top-down and bottom-up approaches for political science majors.
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.

15. Google Image Search: www.iveybusinessjournal.com
We tend to think of the bureaucracy as administrators and power—but good bureaucracies also demonstrate trust and innovation. In America, Hartz’s “liberal tradition” may be helpful in illuminating when and why the people may seek to limit bureaucracies.

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.
Public accountability is a core tenet of republicanism. We expect bureaucracies to publish their results, as well as the raw data, for the public to use as they see fit.
Scary

17. Take out a piece of paper…
Students take a break to see how they would create a rational and efficient bureaucracy. Teacher plays the role of Socrates.
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?