Chapter 11

Bureaucracy

Chapter Outline

Bureaucracy Exists to Improve Efficiency

  1. Bureaucracy is simply a form of organization. Specialization and repetition are essential to the efficiency of any organization.
  2. Despite fears of bureaucratic growth, the federal service has grown little during the past twenty-five years. The national government is large, but the federal service has not been growing any faster than the economy or the society.
  3. The main job of bureaucrats is to implement, or carry out, the objectives of an organization established by its leaders.
  4. Agencies formulate and issue rules that are necessary to fully carry out the overall goals set by legislation. Rule making is exactly the same as legislation. The rules drawn up by government agencies provide more detailed and specific indications of what a policy actually will mean.
  5. Since the advent of the modern civil service system in 1883, most government employees get their jobs through a merit-based, rather than political, system.
  6. Through civil service reform, national and state governments have attempted to reduce political interference in public bureaucracies by granting certain public bureaucrats legal protection from being fired without a show of cause.

The Executive Branch Is Organized Hierarchically

  1. Cabinet departments, agencies, and bureaus are the operating parts of the bureaucratic whole. Departments are the largest subunit of the executive branch, each of which is headed by a department secretary.
  2. One type of executive agency—the clientele agency—exists to foster the interests of a specific group in society. In turn, that group works to support its agency when it is in jeopardy.
  3. America’s chief revenue agency, the Internal Revenue Service, engenders hostility rather than clientele support among groups and individual citizens.
  4. Political considerations have frequently had an impact both on agencies for internal security and on agencies for external national security.
  5. Regulatory agencies in the United States are given the authority to regulate various industries; these agencies often act like courts when making decisions or settling disputes.
  6. Agencies of redistribution influence the amount of money in the economy and directly influence who has money, who has credit, and whether people will want to invest or spend.

Several Forces Control Bureaucracy

  1. Beginning in the twentieth century, each expansion of the national government has been accompanied by a parallel expansion of presidential management authority, but the expansion of presidential power cannot guarantee responsible bureaucracy.
  2. The more power Congress has delegated to the executive, the more it has sought to re-involve itself in directing the interpretation of laws through committee and subcommittee oversight of each agency.
  3. Often the most effective and influential tool for bureaucratic accountability is “the power of the purse,” the ability of the House and Senate committees and subcommittees on appropriations to increase or decrease funding of agencies—as well as to investigate agency activities—to control agency performance.

Democracy Can Control Bureaucracy

  1. Although Congress attempts to control the bureaucracy through oversight, a more effective way to ensure accountability may be to clarify legislative intent.