University:
California State University, Northridge
Course:
POLS 155 | American Political Institutions
Academic year:

2024
Views:

156

Pages:

31
Author:

Rebecca Edwards

Chapter 7: The Executive Branch: Bureaucracy in a Democracy The Paradoxes of Bureaucratic Politics Americans generally have negative views of bureaucracy, and we tend only to focus on bureaucracy when it breaks down. Still, executive agencies and departments perform essential functions in American society and the American economy. We benefit daily from programs administered and services provided by the U.S. Weather Service, the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Postal Service, the FDA, the EPA, and many others. In recent years, presidents of the United States have argued that the federal government has grown too large. – – Republican Ronald Reagan declared that government is often the problem. Democrat Bill Clinton proclaimed that “the era of big government is over.” Accepting the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, George W. Bush echoed Reagan by saying, “Big government is not the answer!” Despite bureaucratic unpopularity and general fears of “big government,” the federal bureaucracy has hardly grown at all during the past quarter century: – – The size of the federal workforce as a percentage of the total workforce has declined. The size of the federal budget as a percentage of the overall economy has remained largely unchanged since 1960. LLJ '-' <( � z LLJ u 0::: LLJ Q. 10 I I I I I I I I Federal civilian and military emplloyment as percentage of total workforce Federal civilian employment as percentage of total workforce 0 ....___....__.....__........_ 1939* 19461950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 YEAR ___,i__.....______.,__......__.......____........____,i....__.....___........, NOTE: Workforce includes unemployed persons. *Lines between 1939 and 1946 are broken because they connect the last prewar year with the first postwar year, disregarding the temporary ballooning of federal employees, especially in the military, during the war years. FIGURE 7.4 Employees in the Federal Service: Total Number as a Percentage of the Workforce 3,000 Q. C 25 2,500 I- u :::> As percentage of GDP (right scale) C 0 � V) � 2,000 ,<( Q. u _J _J I- 0 C 20 LL V) I.LI � 0 0 1,500 C V) z V) V) 0 0 � _J _J al (j (j LL 1,000 15 In current dollars (left scale) 500 0 I.LI (j I- z I.LI u � I.LI Q. o ....................................................................................................................._____. 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 *Data for 2007-8 are estimated. FIGURE 7.5 Annual Federal Outlays YEAR 2005�'- 10 Bureaucracy in a Democracy Though necessary and even valuable, the federal executive branch suffers from an image problem. Bureaucratic procedures are often inefficient and frustrating. Bureaucracy itself is a pejorative term that means “government run by desks.” We use this term to refer to the principles of organization in governmental administration. Bureaucracies (executive branch departments and agencies) are where the authoritative decisions of government are implemented. Examples include:  the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  the Department of Agriculture (USDA)  the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)  the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) “Bureaucrat” is the term used to describe the employees in public bureaucracies who are selected based on merit through the civil service system. Bureaucrats implement public policy, make administrative rules, and apply those rules in specific cases making “quasi-judicial decisions”. Police officers, public school teachers, soldiers, and even professors at public universities are bureaucrats in the sense that they are state actors who implement public policies. Bureaucratic Development over Time 19th Century Bureaucracy    politicized government jobs were “patronage” jobs given to political supporters bureaucracy more representative and accountable to people 20th Century Bureaucracy    professionalized most government jobs were “civil service” jobs awarded on merit decreased potential for cronyism and the political administration of policy Percent of Civilian Federal Government Employees Selected Under Merit System, 1821-1971 100 90 80 Percentage Merit 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 Ye ar Note: The chart stops at 1971 because the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 (which would take effect by 1972) significantly altered the percentage of employees under the merit system without altering the president’s ability to control the executive branch. 1971 In 1885, political scientist (and future president) Woodrow Wilson wrote “The Study of Administration” outlining the role of a bureaucracy in a democracy. He argued:  Politics too often gets in the way of efficient administration.  Bureaucracy could (and should) be run on principles of expertise and sound management.  Democratic policy makers should set broad policy goals while professional administrators should be entrusted to efficiently implement those policy decisions. What are the advantages to having a bureaucracy made up of “nonpolitical” experts? What are the potential costs of such a system? Bureaucratic Institutions Bureaucracies:   are hierarchical benefit from a division of labor Bureaucratic hierarchies and a division of labor promote the development of expertise and efficiency. The bureaucracy is organized into departments and independent agencies. Departments are organized into tiers: – 1st tier  secretary – 2nd tier  undersecretaries – 3rd tier  bureau level • Rural • Risk Management Business Agency Coop rative Servic and Extension Service • Economic Research Service • National Agricultural Library •Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration • National Agricultural Statistics Service Assistant Secretary for Administration . . . FIGURE 7.2 Organ1zat1onal Chart of the Department of Agnculture (bot) Bureaucratic hierarchies (the “chain of command”) must be obvious to political actors inside and outside a bureaucracy. Such a clear hierarchy facilitates the flow of information in a bureaucracy, enhancing both responsiveness and accountability. Once authoritative policy makers surrender authority to bureaucracies, the task is to maintain both responsiveness and accountability. Responsiveness refers to the efficiency with which bureaucrats respond to signals from authoritative policy makers. Accountability refers to the need to reward or punish individual bureaucrats on the quality of their performance. Democratic Control Principal  Agent Bureaucrats are political actors who, as agents of Congress and the president, seek to implement authoritative policy decisions. Congress Bureaucracy President t Elect Elect FIGURE 7.3 Congress, the President, and the Executive Branch Before-the-Fact Controls Presidential appointment of agency and department heads allow presidents to control the executive by “casting” the right appointees. After-the-Fact Controls Presidents use executive orders, reorganization plans, influence over bureaucratic budgets, and “clearance” of administrative decisions to control bureaucratic activities. Congress also controls the bureaucracy. Before-the-Fact Control Legislative language specifies policies to be implemented. After-the-Fact Control Congress’s “power of the purse” ensures bureaucratic compliance. Congress engages in oversight and investigative hearings to monitor bureaucratic activities. Can Bureaucracy Be Changed? Some politicians have sought to “reinvent” bureaucracies to make them more efficient, accountable, and effective. Politicians have also sought to downsize the federal bureaucracy through: – – – – termination deregulation devolution privatization Termination is the strategy of eliminating programs and departments. Some have sought to reduce the budgets and policy scope of regulatory agencies to advance a policy of deregulation. Devolution is an attempt to take power away from the national government bureaucracy and delegate it to the state and local levels. Privatization is the strategy of replacing government control or implementation of a program by contracting with private sector companies. Bureaucratic Trade-Offs There are necessary trade-offs of democratic control and bureaucratic efficiency.  Bureaucratic leeway can either be utilized to enhance bureaucratic efficiency or it can be abused as bureaucrats become “faithless” agents of authoritative policy makers.  Elected officials (the president and members of Congress) must be vigilant in order to maintain democratic control over the bureaucracy. Oversight of the Executive Branch Measuring the effectiveness of oversight may be difficult because it depends on the type of over sight Congress is using. Mathew Mccubbins and Thomas Schwartz define two types of oversight: Police Patrols and Fire Alarms. Although we often think of the Congress as a lawmaking body, it also carries out another impor tant task-----<:hecking the executive branch through the oversight process. 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 put the agency back on track. In recent years, it has been suggested that Congress may be neglecting its oversight responsibilities. Let us consider how oversight has varied over time, and why measuring the effectiveness of oversight may be difficult. Under the police.patrol method, Congress systematically initiates investigations into the activity of 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 cannot monitor all agencies at once. Police•patrol oversight is especially difficult because of the vast number of employees spread out over many government departments and agencies. The table below lists the number of employees in each of the fifteen executive Cabinet departments and the six largest independent agencies. T EXECUTIVE BRANCH EMPLOYEES Independent Agencies Executive Departments Defense Veterans Affairs Homeland Security Justice Agriculture Treasury Interior Health and Human Services Transportation Commerce Labor Energy State Housing and Urban Development Education Congressional hearings are an important tool used to oversee the bureaucracy. The House holds more hearings than the Senate: On average during this period, the House held 9.6 hearings per year while the Senate held only 6.1. We also see two periods where the number of hearings increased dramati cally. Both chambers began to hold more hearings in the mid-to late 1970s in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, and hearings in the House increased significantly after a new Republican majority was elected in 1994. According to congressional scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, in recent years oversight of the bureaucracy across a range of policies has virtually collapsed.2 Since the 1990s, the Senate has lagged well behind the House in holding oversight hearings. In fact, there were no Senate oversight hearings in 2001 and only two each in 2003 and 2004. 616,000 234,000 149,000 103,000 102,000 95,000 71,000 61,000 57,000 36,000 16,000 15,000 13,000 10,000 4,000 Social Security Administration National Aeronautics and Space Administration Environmental Protection Agency Tennessee Valley Authority General Services Administration Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 65,000 20,000 18,000 13,000 13,000 5,000 Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Career Guide to Industries, 2006-07 Edition, Federal Government, Excluding the Postal Service, www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs04l.htm (accessed June 11, 2007). The fire.alarm method relies on the public. Members of Congress do not initiate investigations but wait for adversely affected citizens or interest groups to bring bureaucratic perversions of legislative intent to the attention of the relevant congressional committee. Mccubbins and Schwartz argue that this 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 response to an alarm."3 Since concerned citizens are out looking for bureaucratic fires, members of Congress will have more time to engage in other activities, such as securing reelection.

The Executive Branch: Bureaucracy in a Democracy

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