Chapter 11 Bureaucracy in a Democracy

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Chapter 11Bureaucracy in a Democracy
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Bureaucracy Basics

• Most private and public organizations are
  bureaucracies
• Means rule by office or desk
• A hierarchical organization design to accomplish
  policy goals/decisions.
• Basis for efficient, efficacious, operations
• Public examples - USPS, DOD, DOT, FEMA, CDC

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Bureaucrats

• Public bureaucracies usually draw criticism not
  praise.
• Bureaucrats perform the day-to-day tasks of the
  federal government.
• Bureaucrats
• maintain a paper trail,
• communicate,
• implement policy through rulemaking,
• adjudicate disputes.

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Growth of the Federal Bureaucracy

• 1789 - State, Tres, War and Justice
• 1849 - Interior
• 1889 - Agriculture
• 1913 - Commerce and Labor

• 1953 - HHS
• 1965 - HUD
• 1966 - DOT
• 1977 - Energy
• 1989 - VA
• 2003 - Home Land Security

• 1800 - 2000 employees
• 1900 - 250,000 employees
• 1945 - 4 million employees
• 2002 - 2.7 million employees

About 3,000 appointed by President
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Federal Agencies and Their Respective Numbers of
Civilian Employees
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Government Employment at Federal, State, and
Local Levels
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Federal Bureaucracy As a of Total Workforce
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Ethnic Makeup
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Types of Bureaucracies

• Executive Office of President
• Executive Departments
• Independent Agencies
• Independent Regulatory Commissions
• Government Corporations

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Organization Chart of the Federal Government
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Cabinet Departments

• Fifteen Departments
• Three Layered Levels
• Secretary and Deputy
• Undersecretaries
• Bureau Level Service Agencies

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Independent Agencies

• Bureaucratic agency not included in cabinet
  department headed by single individual
• CIA
• NASA
• General Services Administration (GSA)
• Small Business Administration (SBA)
• National Science Foundation (NSF)

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Independent Regulatory Commissions

• Agency outside the cabinet headed by a commission
  regulating a specific industry or economic
  activity
• Interstate Commerce Commission
• abolished in 1995
• Civil Aeronautics Board
• abolished in 1985
• Securities and Exchange Commission
• Federal Communications Commission

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Government Corporations

• Government agency run like a business so as to
  operate on self created revenue not taxes.
• USPS
• National Railroad Passenger Corp (Amtrak)
• FDIC

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Bureaucrats - Civil Servants

• Government by Gentleman
• Jacksonian spoils system
• party loyalists and campaign staff
• The Civil Service System is based on merit and
  replaced the spoils system with the Civil Service
  Reform Act - 1883
• Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
• Includes the OPM (in EOP) and a Merit Pay System
  with tenure and appointments.
• Whistle-blower protection

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Controlling the Bureaucracy

• Presidents Power
• Congresses Role
• Special Interest Groups
• Courts

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Presidents Power Has limits

• Article II, Section 3 ..he shall take care
  that the laws are faithfully executed.
• Size and Diversity make it a challenging task
• 1.7 million employees in cabinet departments
• 1.0 million employees in independent agencies
• Commitment to specialty not President
• Budget process can be as a control tool

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Congress and Bureaucracy

• Congress creates agencies through legislative
  process
• Can control the conduct of the federal
  bureaucracy through appointment confirmations,
  oversight and the appropriations process.
• Oversight research tools
• GAO, CBO, CRS
• Republican staff cuts in late 90s caused
  reductions in oversight

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Termination

• Termination is the only certain way to reduce the
  size of the bureaucracy.
• Become very politicized and parochial
• Because of clientele relationships, it is
  practically impossible to terminate an agency.

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Devolution

• Devolution is a policy of removing programs from
  federal control and placing them under the
  direction of state and local governments.
• Problems with unequal assumption of
  responsibilities by states.

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Privatization

• Privatization is the process of removing all or
  part of a program from the public sector and
  turning its operation over to the private sector.
• Bush wants to move 850,000 federal jobs to the
  private sector.

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Special Interest Groups

• Lobbying
• Going public
• grassroots and issue advocacy
• Litigation
• Iron Triangle

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Three Iron Triangles
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Courts

• Judicial review of constitutionality
• Procedural fairness - groups must be given notice
  to comment on new rules and procedures.
• Interpreting practices - rules are reasonable in
  light of available evidence.

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Regulation Types

• Economic - shape/limit industry or business
  practices
• Social
• Regulatory quasi -legislative
• Regulatory quasi-judicial

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Regulation Process
Constitution
Congress
President
Laws
Agencies
Individuals or Businesses Code of
Regulations