Which of the following is responsible for oversight of the federal bureaucracy?

What is it and how is it organized?

Bureaucracy: Definition

�      The government organizations, usually staffed with officials selected on the basis of experience and expertise, that implement public policy

�      Hierarchical organization into specialized staffs

�      Free of political accountability (non-partisan)

�   Still affected by Congressional budget and oversight

�      Ideal scenario: members apply specific rules of action to each case in a rational, nondiscretionary, predictable, and impersonal way

Bureaucracy

�      What does it do?

�  From protecting the environment to collecting revenue to regulating the economy

�  American bureaucracies implement a $2 trillion budget

�  Vague lines of authority allow some areas of the bureaucracy to operate with a significant amount of autonomy

Max Weber

Growth of the Federal Bureaucracy

�      1789 � 50 federal government employees

�      2000 � 2.8 million (excluding military, subcontractors, and consultants who also work for federal government)

�      Growth mainly at state and local level since 1970

�   Federal government began devolving powers and services to state and local government

�      Total federal, state, local employees � roughly 21 million people

Organization of Bureaucracy

�      A complex society requires a variety of bureaucratic organizations

�      Four components of Federal Bureaucracy:

�  Cabinet departments

�  Independent executive agencies

�  Independent regulatory agencies

�  Government organizations (USPS, FDIC, TVA)

Cabinet Departments

�      15 departments which serve as the major service organizations of federal government

�   State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, HHS, HUD, Transportation, Energy, Education, Vet. Affairs, Homeland Security

�      Political appointments (Secretaries) at the top who are directly accountable to the president

�   However, staff under secretaries are permanent employees who may resist change

Independent Executive Agencies

�      Not located within any cabinet department, but report directly to the President

�  This gives it some independence from a department that may be hostile to the creation of the agency

�   Secretary of the Interior vs. Environmental Protection Agency

�  Examples: EPA, Office of Homeland Security (before it was made a department last year)

Independent Regulatory Agencies

�      Make and implement rules and regulations in a particular sector of the economy to protect the public interest

�   Congress unable to handle complexities and technicalities required to carry out specific laws

�      Are they truly independent?

�   Suppose to work for public interest, but industries can �capture� them (ICC)

�    Leads to pro-business, rather than pro-consumer, behavior

�      Examples: Federal Reserve Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Staffing the Bureaucracy

�      Natural Aristocracy

�  Thomas Jefferson fired Federalist employees and placed his own men in government positions

�      Spoils System

�  Andrew Jackson used government positions to reward supporters

�  Bureaucracy became corrupt, bloated, and inefficient

Civil Service Reform

�      Pendleton Act of 1883

�   Employment on the basis of merit and open, competitive exams

�   Civil Service Commission to administer the personnel service

�      Hatch Act of 1939

�   Civil service employees cannot take an active party in the political management of campaigns

�      Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinios (1990)

�   Court ruled that partisan political considerations as the basis for hiring, promoting, or transferring public employees was illegal

Political Control of Bureaucracy

�      Who should control the bureaucracy?

�  Bureaucracy should be responsive to elected officials (Congress, the President)

�   Members of the bureaucracy are not elected, and must be held accountable for their actions

�   Making them responsive to elected officials give the public a voice in bureaucratic operations

�  The bureaucracy should be free from political pressures

�   They should be autonomous

Theories of Bureaucratic Politics

�      Politics-Administration Dichotomy

�  Bureaucracy should be free of politics

�      Iron Triangles

�  Interest groups

�  Congressional subcommittees

�  Bureaucratic agencies

�      Issue Networks

�      Principal-Agent Model

Politics-Administration Dichotomy

�      Wilson : Bureaucracy is neutral and not political

�  Bureaucrats are experts in their specialties and must be left alone to do their job without political interference

�      However, people began to realize that politics and administration were NOT separate

�  Norton Long: �Power is the lifeblood of administration�

Iron Triangles

�      Reinforcing relationship between:

�  Interest Groups

�  Congressional Subcommittees

�  Bureaucratic agencies

�      Policy decisions are made jointly by these three groups who feed off each other to develop and maintain long-term, regularized relationships

Issue Networks

�      The relationship between bureaucracy is not as rigid as iron triangle theory would have us believe

�  Also, more than three actors involved in process

�   For every issue, there are also a number of political elites who are involved (and who know each other via the issue)

�   Members of Congress, congressional committees, the president, advocacy groups, and �issue watchers� (like academics or highly interested citizens)

Principal-Agent Model

�      Who are principals, who are agents?

�      Principals and agents both seek to maximize their interests

�  Principals want to control bureaucracy

�  Agents want to have the least amount of control exerted over it

�      To keep agents in check, two possibilities:

�  Monitoring/oversight

�  Minimizing goal conflict

Who provides oversight to the federal bureaucracy?

What is oversight of the federal bureaucracy?

What is the main responsibility of the federal bureaucracy?

Who controls bureaucracy?