1. Bureaucracy Size and Scope

2. President Cabinet DepartmentsInd. Executive Agencies White House StaffExecutive Office of the President Independent Regulatory Commissions Independent Govt. Corporations

3. The Politics of Agency Structure Creating agency = issue’s importance Structure (degree of independence from executive, cabinet departments) can – Affect policy-making latitude – Allow non-political considerations (like efficiency) to take center stage

4. The Politics of Agency Structure: The Unitary Executive Remember Hamilton: unified, or unitary, executive necessary for “energy” Structure of agencies affects unitary executive – Unitary executive goal of first Bush pres – Others prefer “plausible deniability”

5. The Politics of Agency Structure: The Regulated Interests Agency devoted to your issue means it is important, gives you visibility Iron triangles – don’t want to disturb these relationships!

6. What Bureaucratic Agencies Do Short answer: implement laws and policies Inspection and Enforcement Rule-making Adjudication Legislation Litigation

7. Forces Affecting Bureaucratic Action Congress – “Oversight” – Funding – Legislative mandates President – “Unitary executive” – Appointment and removal Clientele – “Iron triangles”

8. Problem # 1: Slow and Inefficient Congress and President try to maintain CONTROL – Prevent “policy slippage” Fairness and equal treatment “One person’s red tape may be another’s treasured procedural safeguard.”

9. Problem # 2: Ineffective Impossible tasks – Complex social problems – Goals vague and changing Results difficult to measure – What would conditions be like in the absence of agency action? – What could the agency reasonably accomplish with its resources?

10. Problem # 3: Slow to Change, Prone to Expansion and Waste “Parochialism” (narrow perspective) Self-Interest – Desire for a big budget – Desire for more personnel – Desire for control over visible policy areas Example – War on Drugs – Leads to redundancy and waste Point of View – Internal culture – Who is drawn to work with the agency? – Interaction with clientele

11. Ways to “Fix” the Bureaucracy (and Why They Don’t Work) Termination (simply cut whole agencies) – Political backlash from clientele Deregulation – “Works” – but we sometimes miss the regulation Devolution – Creates flexibility, but also inequality Privatization – Private firms not always more efficient – Additional oversight required increases costs – Political backlash from lost fed jobs – Many of the functions of government don’t translate into private action