1. The Executive Branch: Bureaucracy in a Democracy8
The Executive Branch:
Bureaucracy in a Democracy

2. Public Opinion and Government Waste
Discussion:
The general public believes there is a lot of waste in government, and they are more inclined to believe that today than they did 50 years ago.

3. Bureaucracy in a Democracy
The executive branch is where implementation of policies happens so it is important and it employs a bureaucratic form of organization
“Bureaucracy” is frequently used as a pejorative term and is associated with inefficiency and delay
But bureaucracy is actually employed in the name of efficiency, speed, and equity

4. What is Bureaucracy?
Bureaucracy can be defined as the complex structure of offices, tasks, rules, and principles of organization that are employed by all large-scale institutions to coordinate the work of their personnel
The core of bureaucracy is hierarchical organization that employs a division of labor and specialization

5. The Shape of a Domestic Security Department

6. The Case for Bureaucracy
Bureaucratic organization enhances efficiency through division of labor and specialization
Bureaucracies allow governments to operate by allowing large-scale coordination of individuals working on a task

7. What Do Bureaucrats Do?
Implementation – The efforts of departments and agencies to translate laws into specific bureaucratic routines
Rulemaking – A quasi-legislative administrative process that produces regulations
Administrative Adjudication – The application of rules and precedents to specific cases to settle disputes

8. Why Bureaucracy? We’ve already provided two answers:
Efficiency
Speedy and equitable implementation
A third reason for bureaucracy is politics
Legislators find it useful to delegate some decisions
Legislators sometimes lack expertise or prefer for decisions to be made by “objective” bureaucrats rather than interested politicians

9. How is the Executive Branch Organized?
Cabinet Departments (like DHS)
Independent Agencies (like NASA)
Government Corporations – government agencies that operate more like a business (like Amtrak)
Independent Regulatory Commissions – rulemaking bodies at least somewhat insulated from politics (like the FEC)

10. How the Department of Agriculture is Organized

11. Four Missions of Agencies: Clientele Agencies
A department or bureau of government whose mission is to promote, serve, or represent a particular interest
Examples:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Labor
Clientele agencies typically have field offices local to their clientele

12. Four Missions of Agencies: Maintenance of the Union
Agencies related to the core functions of keeping government running and the nation secure
Examples:
Revenue agencies (IRS)
Internal security (DOJ)
External security (DOD)

13. Four Missions of Agencies: Regulatory Agencies
A department, bureau, or independent agency whose primary mission is to eliminate or restrict certain behaviors defined as negative in themselves or negative in their consequences
Examples:
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

14. Four Missions of Agencies: Redistributive Agencies
Agencies that influence the money supply, the role of the government in the economy, and the redistribution of wealth
Examples:
Fiscal policy (spending and taxing) is largely influenced by the Department of Treasury
Monetary policy (regulating money supply) is largely influenced by the Federal Reserve
Welfare policy (transfers of wealth)

15. The Problem of Bureaucratic Control: Motivation
Bureaucrats can be conceived of as rational actors who are budgetary maximizers
Greater prestige and responsibility comes from running a larger enterprise
Bureaucrats generally believe in the mission of the agency and want resources to do more
Congress and the president may have difficulty determining need from “want”

16. The Problem of Bureaucratic Control: Principal-Agent
Bureaucrats can be understood as agents of elected officials (the principal)
Two potential problems:
Bureaucratic drift – a problem where implementation is more to the liking of the bureaucracy than faithful to the original intention of the legislation
Coalitional drift – enacted policy changes because the enacting coalition is temporary

17. Presidential Control of Bureaucracy
Before-the-Fact Controls:
Appointment of sympathetic agency heads
Regulatory review prior to final rule enactment
After-the-Fact Controls:
Executive orders
Changes in budget authority
Bureaucratic reorganization plans

18. Congressional Control of Bureaucracy
Before-the-Fact Controls:
Authorization of agency
Legislative language restricting discretion
After-the-Fact Controls:
Budgetary control
Oversight – hearings and investigations

19. Downsizing Government: Termination and Devolution
One certain way to reduce the size of the bureaucracy would be to eliminate programs and agencies. This is difficult to do, particularly with clientele agencies
Devolution – the policy of removing a program from one level of government and passing it down to a lower level – is another way to downsize the federal government

20. The Size of the Bureaucracy
Discussion:
The federal civilian workforce as a percentage of the total workforce has actually declined over time. While many Americans believe government is too big, the reality is that federal spending has risen (see next slide), while the federal workforce is not substantially larger.

21. The Size of Federal Spending
Discussion:
Federal spending has gone up in recent years, although federal spending as a percentage of GDP is expected to come back down to a historically stable level in the next few years. However, the growth in federal spending is concentrated in entitlement spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), defense spending, and interest on the national debt. These are all categories that most Americans would rather not reduce.

22. Government Employment Growth at the Local Level
Discussion:
The drop in government employment at the state and local level are particularly striking as states have cut back on employees to cut spending as a result of the economic slowdown in 2008–09.

23. Privatization
Privatization – the act of moving all or part of a program from the public sector to the private sector – can also reduce the size of government
Some public responsibilities (like trash collection) can be privatized more easily than others
Nevertheless, privatization is an increasingly popular policy innovation

24. Clicker Question
Which of the following levels of government is growing most rapidly in terms of numbers of employees?
Local
State
Federal civilian
Federal military
Answer: A

25. The Policy Principle and Bureaucracy
The combination of institutional arrangements (bureaucracy, hiring of employees, civil service protection, etc.) and individual preferences (the preferences of rational bureaucrats) yields particular kinds of policy outcomes.
The outcomes may be either good or bad.
Discussion:
It is useful (in an in-class discussion or in a writing exercise) to ask students to reflect on how the principles of politics apply to the bureaucracy. In applying the Policy Principle, we can see how particular bureaucratic structures tend to yield stability and that policy outcomes, combined with the individual preferences of bureaucrats, may be either good or bad.

26. Although we often think of Congress as a lawmaking body, it also carries out another important task— keeping a watchful eye on the executive branch. If Congress thinks the bureaucracy is no longer serving the public’s interest as defined by the legislative branch, it can use its oversight powers to pull the agency back where it belongs. As the figure below shows, millions of employees work in the bureaucracy. How does Congress monitor all of the departments and agencies, and the vast range of executive branch activities? How does it know when agencies need to be reined in?
Scholars Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz define two types of oversight: police patrols and fire alarms. Police-patrol oversight implies that members of Congress are actively monitoring executive agencies. The goal is to catch and punish enough violators so that the rest of the bureaucracy will be discouraged from straying too far from legislative intent. However, Congress does not have the resources to monitor all agencies at once. Fire-alarm monitoring is less active when compared to police patrols. Instead, Congress sets up a series of rules and procedures that allows citizens and interest groups to keep executive agencies in check. McCubbins and Schwartz argue the fire-alarm method is more effective because, “Instead of sniffing for fires, Congress places fire-alarm boxes on street corners, builds neighborhood fire houses and sometimes dispatches its own hook-and-ladder in respond to an alarm.”[1]
[1] Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols and Fire Alarms,” American Journal of Political Science 28, no. 1 (1984): 165–79. 26

27. Although we often think of Congress as a lawmaking body, it also carries out another important task— keeping a watchful eye on the executive branch. If Congress thinks the bureaucracy is no longer serving the public’s interest as defined by the legislative branch, it can use its oversight powers to pull the agency back where it belongs. As the figure below shows, millions of employees work in the bureaucracy. How does Congress monitor all of the departments and agencies, and the vast range of executive branch activities? How does it know when agencies need to be reined in?
Scholars Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz define two types of oversight: police patrols and fire alarms. Police-patrol oversight implies that members of Congress are actively monitoring executive agencies. The goal is to catch and punish enough violators so that the rest of the bureaucracy will be discouraged from straying too far from legislative intent. However, Congress does not have the resources to monitor all agencies at once. Fire-alarm monitoring is less active when compared to police patrols. Instead, Congress sets up a series of rules and procedures that allows citizens and interest groups to keep executive agencies in check. McCubbins and Schwartz argue the fire-alarm method is more effective because, “Instead of sniffing for fires, Congress places fire-alarm boxes on street corners, builds neighborhood fire houses and sometimes dispatches its own hook-and-ladder in respond to an alarm.”[1]
SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Career Guide to Industries, 2010–11 Edition, Federal Government, excluding the Postal Service, 6/22/11).
[1] Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols and Fire Alarms,” American Journal of Political Science 28, no. 1 (1984): 165–79. 27

28. How has oversight varied over the years
How has oversight varied over the years? The graph above depicts the number of Government Efficiency and Bureaucratic Oversight Hearings held by the House and Senate from 1946 through Two patterns stand out. First, the House holds more hearings compared to the Senate. On average, the House holds 9.9 hearings a year with only 6.2 for the Senate. Second, we see two periods where the number of hearings increased dramatically. Both chambers began to hold more hearings in the mid- to late 1970s in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam, and again following the Republican takeover of the House in Which form of monitoring seems likely to have been predominant in these periods? 28