The Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy Improves Efficiency

• Bureaucracy is a complex structure of offices, tasks, rules, and principles used by large-scale institutions to coordinate personnel work.
• It coordinates different parts of the government to provide services.
• It employs specialists and provides resources and tools.
• It effectively reaches out to the public.
• Implements policies passed by Congress and the president, as well as policies adjudicated by the courts.

Bureaucracy and Bureaucrats: What Bureaucrats Do

• Bureaucrats execute and implement laws.
  • Implementation: the efforts of departments and agencies to translate laws into specific bureaucratic rules and actions.
• They make rules that guide the implementation of laws passed by Congress.
  • Rule-making is often highly political, and rules can be easily reversed by subsequent administrations.
• Bureaucracies innovate and enforce laws.
• Help devise new ways of doing things (e.g., facilitated the creation of the internet).

Key Characteristics of Bureaucracies

• Mission-driven: Each department has its own mission statement.
• Expertise: Many are policy experts in their area.
• Hierarchical structure: They function along clear lines of authority using standard operating procedures.

The Creation of the Bureaucracy

• Bureaucratic organizations are formed because Congress delegates some of its power to the executive branch.
• Congress passes enabling legislation that creates an entity, establishes its purposes, and defines its scope.
• Congress can change an organization’s power, alter its purpose, reduce its funding, or eliminate it altogether.
• Bureaucrats use the congressionally delegated power to develop rules and regulations that have the effect of law.

Delegating to the Bureaucracy

• Congress delegates significant policy-making responsibility to the bureaucracy.
• This delegation of authority sets up a principal-agent problem: a conflict in priorities between an actor (Congress) and the representative authorized to act on the actor’s behalf (the bureaucracy).

Additional Considerations

• The bureaucracy has:
  • Quasi-legislative power (it makes rules and regulations).
  • Quasi-executive power (bureaucrats implement and enforce their own rules and regulations).
  • Quasi-judicial power (the bureaucracy implements and enforces its rules and regulations and has the ability to adjudicate administrative conflicts).

Federal Bureaucracy: Location within the Executive Branch

• Congress decides where to locate the agency within the government and who will head the agency.
• The president has more control over organizations within the executive branch and less over independent agencies.
• Agencies can be headed by one person or by a multi-person board.

Organization of the Executive Branch: Executive Departments

• There are 15 executive departments that employ over 80 percent of the federal civilian workforce.
• The executive departments: State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security.
• The secretaries of these departments, along with the vice president and the attorney general, make up the Cabinet.

Organization of the Executive Branch: Independent Agencies

• Independent agencies are not part of executive departments but have independent authority to implement policy and design regulations.
• The president still appoints and directs the heads of these agencies.
• They usually have broad powers to provide public services.
• Examples: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Organization of the Executive Branch: Corporations and Commissions

• Independent regulatory commissions are rule-making bodies outside the executive department, usually headed by commissioners.
• Commissioners are appointed by the president for fixed terms.
• Examples: Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
• A government corporation is a government agency that performs a market-oriented public service and raises revenues to fund its activities.

Federal Bureaucracy: National Security

• Some bureaucratic agencies work to promote national security.
  • State Department: Primary mission is diplomacy; also staffs U.S. embassies.
  • Department of Defense: Provides military forces to deter war and protect the nation.
  • Includes Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Three military departments (Army, Navy, and Air Force)
  • Six regional Unified Combatant Commands
  • Department of Homeland Security: Responsible for maintaining domestic security.
  • Created after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
  • Integrates information from intelligence agencies and law enforcement.
  • Responsible for border security, emergency preparedness, and science-related concerns (biological, chemical, or nuclear threats).

Federal Bureaucracy: Maintaining a Strong National Economy

• Other federal agencies work to maintain a strong economy.
  • Treasury Department: Collects taxes, manages national debt, prints currency, and performs economic policy analysis.
  • Federal Reserve System (the Fed): The nation’s major monetary agency.
  • It has authority over interest rates and lending activities.
  • Adjusts the supply of money and credit.
• Other agencies work to strengthen other parts of the economy.
  • The Agriculture Department disseminates information on farming practices.
  • The Transportation Department oversees the nation’s highway and air traffic system.
  • The Small Business Administration, within the Commerce Department, provides loans and technical assistance to small businesses across the country.

Federal Bureaucracy: Public Welfare

• Another set of agencies promotes citizen well-being.
  • The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which conducts biomedical research.
  • The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) monitors the safety and efficacy of human and veterinary drugs, cosmetics, and the nation’s food supply.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protects public health and safety.
• Another set of agencies help low-income and elderly citizens.
  • Medicaid and Medicare provide health insurance to low-income and elderly Americans.
  • The Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service administers the federal school lunch program and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Bureaucracy: Who Are Bureaucrats?

• Bureaucrats are members of the “civil service.”
• The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 created a hiring system for bureaucracy based on merit.
  • The merit system requires that appointees to positions in public bureaucracies be objectively qualified.
  • It helped end the “spoils system,” which awarded jobs based on political connections.
• At higher levels of government, jobs are still filled with political appointees (e.g., Cabinet secretaries).
  • Political appointees: the presidentially appointed layer of the bureaucracy on top of the civil service.
• The top executives in many agencies are part of the Senior Executive Services (SES): the top, presidentially appointed management rank for career civil servants.

Size of the Bureaucracy

• Contrary to popular assertions, federal service has shrunk in size both absolutely and relative to the total population.
  • 1980s: 3 million civilian employees; 3.6 million military personnel
  • 2019: 2.8 million civilian employees; 1.3 million military personnel
• As a percentage of the total workforce, federal employment has declined since the 1950s. However, the number of state and local government employees has grown.

Size of the Bureaucracy: Private Contracting

• The number of federal contractors exceeds the number of federal employees.
• Some of the decline in the size of the bureaucracy is because of privatization.
  • Privatization: the process by which a formerly public service becomes a service provided by a private company but paid for by the government.

Controlling the Bureaucracy: The President

• Presidents may have goals related to both management and control of the bureaucracy. How do they achieve these goals?
  • Appointment powers: the president can appoint those loyal to them to head bureaucratic departments and agencies.
  • The Executive Office of the President (EOP), particularly the Office of Management and Budget, controls the federal budget and regulations.

Controlling the Bureaucracy: Congress

• Congress can control the bureaucracy through approval of funding, changing the location or structure of agencies, and organizational choices.
  • Oversight is the effort by Congress to exercise control over the activities of executive agencies through hearings, investigations, and other techniques.
  • “Police patrol” oversight involves regular or preemptive hearings.
  • “Fire alarm” oversight is prompted by media attention or group complaints.
• Congress created the inspectors general (IGs) in 1978, independent audit organizations located in most federal agencies.
  • IGs can audit agency operations to uncover waste, fraud, or misconduct.
  • The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congressional Research Service (CRS), and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provide important information that can assist Congress in its oversight duties.

Controlling the Bureaucracy: A Case Study

• The formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) illustrates the struggle between the president and Congress over the bureaucracy.
• The CFPB was created in 2010 after the financial crisis that started in 2007.
• President Obama and congressional Republicans disagreed about the structure, funding, and location of the CFPB.
• Congressional Republicans wanted funding to annually appointed by Congress, not as automatic funding from a fixed percentage of the Federal Reserve System’s operating expenses.

Controlling the Bureaucracy: Other Forms of Oversight

• Judicial oversight: Federal courts have the authority to judge the constitutionality of bureaucratic actions, settle disputes between Congress and executive agencies, and monitor the implementation of laws.
• Internal oversight: Whistleblowers may report wrongdoing within federal agencies.
• Citizen oversight: Ordinary citizens and journalists can file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The Difficulties of Bureaucratic Control

• Bureaucratic control is difficult as the tools of control are imperfect.
• There are sometimes outright failures of the bureaucracy, such as the 2014 waiting-list scandal at the Veterans Health Administration.
• There is also the issue of regulatory capture: a form of government failure in which an agency becomes more concerned with serving interest groups and businesses than with regulating them.

Public Opinion Poll Questions

• Q1: Do you generally approve or disapprove of the way the federal bureaucracy handles its job?
  • Approve / Disapprove
• Q2: Is the U.S. military an effective and efficient bureaucracy?
  • Yes, it is effective and efficient.
  • No, the military is neither effective nor efficient.
  • It is effective, but not efficient.
  • It is not effective, but it is efficient.
• Q3: Do online service options make bureaucracies better at their core business?
  • Yes, online services make bureaucracy work better.
  • No, online services make bureaucracy worse.
  • Online service options make no difference.
• Q4: Why do you think most Americans have a negative view of the federal bureaucracy?
  • Negative personal experiences (long lines, poor service, etc.)
  • Opinions that the public costs exceed the benefits
  • Both a and b apply.
  • Most Americans do not hold negative views of the bureaucracy.
• Q5: Who should be credited or blamed for the smaller size of government?
  • Presidents
  • Congress
  • Both presidents and Congress have been responsible.