1. The Bureaucracy

2. What is the bureaucracy?

3. While size and complexity can cause problems for bureaucracies, the more important point is the political context in which these organizations act.
Constitutional system and traditions make the U.S. bureaucracy distinctive
Political authority over the bureaucracy is shared by president and Congress
Federal agencies share functions with related state and local government agencies
Adversary culture leads to closer scrutiny and make court challenges more likely

4. Scope of bureaucracy Little public ownership of industry in the U.S.
High degree of regulation of private industries in the U.S.

5. The Growth of the Bureaucracy
One early controversy ended when the Supreme Court gave the president sole removal power
Myers v. United States (1926)
Still, Congress funds and investigates the agencies, and shapes the laws they administer.

6. Myers v. United States, (1926), was a United States Supreme Court decision ruling that the President has the exclusive power to remove executive branch officials, and does not need the approval of the Senate or any other legislative body.
In 1920, Frank S. Myers, a First-Class Postmaster in Portland, Oregon, was removed from office by President Woodrow Wilson. An 1876 federal law provided that "Postmasters of the first, second, and third classes shall be appointed and may be removed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate." Myers argued that his dismissal violated this law, and he was entitled to back pay for the unfilled portion of his four-year term.

7. Chief Justice William Howard Taft, writing for the Court, noted that the Constitution does mention the appointment of officials, but is silent on their dismissal. An examination of the notes of the Constitutional Convention, however, showed that this silence was intentional: the Convention did discuss the dismissal of executive-branch staff, and believed it was implicit in the Constitution that the President did hold the exclusive power to remove his staff, whose existence was an extension of the President's own authority.
The Court therefore found that the statute was unconstitutional, for it violated the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. In reaching this decision, it also expressly found the Tenure of Office Act, which had imposed a similar requirement on other Presidential appointees and played a key role in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, to have been invalid; it had been repealed by Congress some years before this decision.

8. The appointment of officials
Officials affect how laws are interpreted, tone and effectiveness of administration, party strength
Patronage in 19th and early 20th centuries rewarded supporters, included congressional support, built party organizations
The Civil War was a watershed in bureaucratic growth; it showed the administrative weakness of federal government and increased demands for civil service reform
Post-Civil War period saw industrialization, emergence of a national economy – power of national government to regulate interstate commerce became necessary and controversial.
The Spoils System

9. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (ch. 27, 22 Stat
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (ch. 27, 22 Stat. 403) of United States is a federal law established in 1883 that stipulated that government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit.
The act provided selection of government employees by competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation.
It also made it illegal to fire or demote government employees for political reasons and prohibited soliciting campaign donations on Federal government property.
To enforce the merit system and the judicial system, the law also created the United States Civil Service Commission.
A crucial result was the shift of the parties to reliance on funding from business, since they could no longer depend on patronage hopefuls.

10. A service role
: new agencies primarily performed a service role because…
Constraints of limited government, states’ rights, and fragmented power
Laissez-faire philosophies
Supreme Court held that, under the Constitution, executive agencies could only apply statutes passed by Congress
Wars led to reduced restrictions on administrators and an enduring increase in executive branch personal

11. A change in role: Depression and World War II led to government activism
Supreme Court upheld laws that granted discretion to administrative agencies
Introduction of heavy income taxes supports a large bureaucracy
Public believes in continuing military preparedness and various social programs

12. The Federal Bureaucracy Today

13. Direct and indirect growth
Modest increase in the number of government employees
Significant indirect increase in the number of employees through use of private contractors, state and local government employees
More important is the growth in discretionary authority – the ability to choose courses of action and to make policies not set out in the statutory law
Delegation of undefined authority by Congress greatly increased

14. Factors explaining the behavior of officials
Primary areas of delegation
Subsidies to groups and organizations
Grant-in-aid programs, transferring money from national to state and local governments
Devising and enforcing regulations, especially for the economy
Factors explaining the behavior of officials
Recruitment and reward systems
Personal and political attributes
Nature of work
Constraints imposed on agencies by various outside actors

15. Recruitment and retention
The competitive service: bureaucrats compete for jobs through OPM (Office of Personnel Management)
Departments increasingly do their own hiring without an OPM referral, for the following reasons:
OPM system is cumbersome and not geared to department needs
Agencies have nee of professional who cannot be ranked by examination
Agencies face pressure to diversify federal bureaucracy personnel

16. The expected service: bureaucrats appointed by agencies, typically in a nonpartisan fashion
About 3% of expected employees are appointed on grounds other than merit – presidential appointments, Schedule C jobs, non-career executive assignments.
Pendleton Act (1883): changed the basis of government jobs from patronage to merit
Merit system protects the president from pressure and protects patronage appointees from removal by new presidents (blanketing in)

17. The buddy system
Name-request jobs: filled by a person whom an agency has already identified for middle- and upper-level jobs
Job description may be tailored for a person
Circumvents the usual search process…
…but also encourages issue networks based on shared policy views
Issue networks are an alliance of various interest groups and individuals who unite in order to promote a single issue in government policy. Issue networks can be either domestic or international in scope, and many are active solely within the domain of the Internet. Usually, issue networks push for a change in policy within the government bureaucracy.

18. The agencies’ point of view
Firing a bureaucrat
Most bureaucrats cannot be easily fired, although there are informal methods of discipline
Senior Executive service (SES) was established to provide the president and cabinet with more control in personnel decisions
But very few SES members have actually been fired or even transferred, and cash bonuses have not been influential.
The agencies’ point of view
Agencies are dominated by lifetime bureaucrats who have worked for no other agency
Assures continuity and expertise…
..but also give subordinates power over new bosses

19. Personal Attributes – social class, education, political beliefs
Allegations of critics are based on the fact that political appointees and upper-level bureaucrats are unrepresentive of U.S. society and the belief that they have an occupational self-interest.
Results of surveys of bureaucrats show that they…
Are somewhat more liberal or conservative, depending on the appointing president, than the average citizen
But they don’t take extreme positions

20. Bureaucrats’ policy views reflect the type of work that they do
Correlation found between the type of agency and the attitudes of the employees
Activist agency bureaucrats tend to be more liberal (FTC, EPA, FDA)
Traditional agency bureaucrats tend to be less liberal (Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury)
Bureaucrats’ policy views reflect the type of work that they do
Do bureaucrats sabotage their political bosses?
Most bureaucrats try to carry out policy, even those they disagree with
But bureaucrats do have obstructive powers – Whistleblower Protection Act (1989)
A United States federal law that protects federal whistleblowers who work for the government and report agency misconduct.
A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if agency authorities take (or threaten to take) retaliatory personnel action against any employee or applicant because of disclosure of information by that employee or applicant.
Whistleblowers may file complaints that they believe reasonably evidences a violation of a law, rule or regulation; gross mismanagement; gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority; or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.

21. Most civil servants have highly structured jobs that make their personal attitudes irrelevant.
Professionals’ loosely structured roles may cause their work to be more influenced by personal attitudes
Professional values help explain how power is used
Culture and careers
Each agency has its own culture, an informal understanding among employees about how they are supposed to act
Strong agency culture motivates employees but it makes agencies resistant to change.

22. Constraints are much greater on government agencies than on private bureaucracies
Hiring, firing, pay & other procedures are established by law, not by the market
General constraints
Administrative Procedure Act (1946)
Freedom of Information Act (1966)
National Environmental Policy Act (1969)
Privacy Act (1974)
Open Meeting Law (1976)
Several agencies are often assigned to a single policy

23. Effects of constraints
Government moves slowly
Government sometimes acts inconsistently
Easier to block action than take action
Reluctant decision making by lower-ranking employees
Red tape
Why so many constraints
Constraints come from citizens: agencies try to respond to citizen demands for openness, honestly, fairness, etc.

24. Agency Allies
Agencies often seek alliances with congressional committees or interest groups
Iron Triangle – client politics
The iron triangle comprises the policy-making relationship among the congressional committees, the bureaucracy, and interest groups.
Far less common today – politics has become too complicated
More interest groups, more congressional subcommittees – more competing forces
Courts have also granted more access
Issue Networks: groups that regularly debate government policy on certain issues
Contentious – split along partisan, ideological, economic lines
New presidents often recruit from networks.

25. Congressional Oversight

26. Forms of congressional supervision
Congress creates agencies and authorizes their programs
Appropriations allows the agency to spend money on the programs
The Appropriations Committee and legislative committee
Appropriations Committee may be the most powerful of all the congressional committees
Most expenditure recommendations are approved by the House
Tends to recommend an amount lower than the agency requested
Has power to influence an agency’s policies by “marking up” an agency’s budget.

27. Informal congressional controls over agencies
But becoming less powerful because…
Trust funds operate outside the regular government budget and are not controlled by the appropriations committees
Annual authorizations allow the legislative committees greater oversight
Budget deficits have necessitated cuts
Informal congressional controls over agencies
Individual members of Congress can seek privileges for constituents
Congressional committees may seek committee clearance, the right to pass on certain agency decisions

28. Congressional Investigations
The Legislative Veto
Definition: a requirement that an executive decision must lie before Congress for a specified period before it takes effect
Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court in Chadha (1983)
Debate about the legislative veto continues
Congressional Investigations
Power inferred from the congressional power to legislate
Means for checking agency discretion and also for authorizing agency actions independent of presidential preferences

29. Bureaucratic “pathologies”

30. Five major complaints about the bureaucracy
Red tape – complex and sometimes conflicting rules
Conflict – agencies work at cross-purpose
Duplication – two or more agencies tend to do the same thing
Imperialism – tendency of agencies to grow, irrespective of programs’ benefits and costs
Waste – spending more than is necessary to buy some product or service
Each complaint has logical origins in the constitutional order and policy-making process
Also, some exaggerations and unusual circumstances generate difficulties

31. Reforming the Bureaucracy

32. Numerous attempts to make the bureaucracy work better for less money
11 reform attempts in the 1990s
Prior reforms stressed presidential control on behalf of efficiency, accountability, and consistency
National Performance Review (NPR) in 1993 designed to reinvent government calling for a new kind of organizational culture
Less centralized management
More employee initiatives
Fewer detailed rules, more customer satisfaction

33. Bureaucratic reform is always difficult to accomplish
Most rules and red tape are due to struggles between president and Congress or to agencies’ efforts to avoid alienating influential voters
Periods of divided government worsen matters, especially in implementing policy
Presidents of one party seek to increase political control (executive micromanagement).
Congresses of another party respond by increasing investigations and rules (legislative micromanagement).