The Bureaucracy

The Bureaucracy. What is the Federal Bureaucracy? ● Bureaucracy - The complex structure of offices, rules, and principles of organizations that is employed by all large-scale institutions to coordinate the work of their personnel. ● Bureaucrats carry out the everyday work of government. ● Bureaucracy ensures fair, accountable administration performed by expert professionals. ● Bureaucracy is a means of coordinating the many different parts that must work together for the government to provide useful services. What Bureaucrats Do? ● Bureaucrats execute and implement laws. Bureaucrats Implement Laws. ● The federal bureaucracy is responsible for putting laws into effect. ● Bureaucracies are responsible for filling in the blanks by determining how the laws should be implemented. ○ Administrative capacity is an important factor in bureaucracies’ ability to implement laws effectively. Bureaucrats Make Rules. ● One of the most important activities that government agencies do is issue rules that provide more detailed and specific indications of what a given congressional poliicy will actually mean. ● By the administrative Procedure Act of 1946. ○ Once Congress passes a new law, the relevant agency studies the legislation and proposes a set of rules to guide implementation. ○ These proposed rules are submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. ○ If OMB approves, the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register. ○ After Reviewing public comments and making changes, the agency proposes a final rule, which goes back to OMB for clearance, uon which it is published in the Federal Register. ○ The agency’s rules have the force of law. ● During the 1970s and 80’s, the length of time required to develop an administrative rule from a proposal to publication in the Federal Register grew from an average of 15 months to an average of 35-40 months. Bureaucrats Enforce Laws. ● In addition to rule making, bureaucracies play an essential role in enforcing the laws. Key Characteristics of Bureaucracies. ● Expertise is one of the main resources and distinguishing characteristics of the federal bureaucracy. ● Bureaucracies are also characterized by hierarchical structures with clear lines of authority and standardized procedures governed by rules. ● The 1939 Hatch Act. ○ Prevented federal employees from engaging in certain types of political activities, such as wearing political buttons while on duty or using their official authority to interfere with an election. The Decision to Delegate. ● We might wonder why Congress writes laws but then delegates such significant policy making responsibility to the bureaucracy. ○ One reason is that bureaucracies employ people who have much more specialized expertise in specific policy areas than do members of Congress. ○ A second reason that COngress needs bureaucracy is that updating legislation can take many years, and bureaucratic flexibility can ensure that laws are administered in ways that take new conditions into account more quickly. ○ Members of congress often prefer to delegate politically difficult decision making to bureaucrats, thus avoiding having to deal with controversial issues that might anger constituents or interest groups and threaten their chances for re-election. ● The principal agent problem. ○ Occurs when one entity gives decision making authority to another, but the agent makes decisions that are different from what the principal may have wanted. Who Are Bureaucrats? ● The vast majority of bureaucrats are members of the “civil service” and work under the merit system created by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. ○ This act required bureaucratic personnel to be qualified for the jobs to which they were hired. ● Merit system employees were given legal protection against being fired without a show of cause. ● The 1883 civil service reform was updated by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which set up new processes to ensure that the recruitment and promotion of civil servants remained merit based rather than political. The 1978 act created the Merit Systems Protection Board to defend competitive and merit-based recruitment and promotion of civil servants from efforts to make these personnel policies more political. The Federal Labor Relations Authority was set up to administer collective bargaining and to address individual personnel grievances. ● The Office of Personnel Management, was created to manage the recruiting, testing, and training of federal employees, as well as their retirement system. ● Political appointees fill posts as Cabinet secretaries and assistant secretaries and who are not part of the civil service. ○ Of the 4000+ political appointees, just over 1000 require Senate confirmation. ■ Many political appointees have ties to the president or the president's party. ● In many agencies there are top executives who are members of the Senior Executive Service, a top management rank for career civil servants and sometimes individuals from outside of government. ○ The SES was created by the 1978 civil service reform and intended to foster “public management” as a profession. ● Newly elected presidents have a “transition team” that assists in the many tasks that must take place as the reins of government are handed from one president to the next. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA) allows a president to name officials to top posts on a temporary basis while awaiting Senate confirmation of permanent personnel. Nearly 4 out of 5 federal employees work outside of Washington, D.C. Compared to private-sector workers. The size of the federal service has been a subject of political contention for decades. ○ Particularly in the post-Watergate era of low trust in government, politicians from both parties have asserted that the federal government is too big. Despite fears of bureaucratic growth getting out of hand the federal service has shrunk in size both absolutely and relative to the total population. Both state and local government employment and government contracting have grown. Privatization downsizes the government in that the workers providing the service are no longer counted as part of the government bureaucracy. Critics of the contracting worry that oversight and accountability are insufficient and that the emphasis on contracting has detracted from efforts to recruit and retain talented employees in the career civil service itself. Because contracting is such a big business, it has become the focus of reform efforts.