American Bureaucracy Becoming a Bureaucrat, Policymaking, Reforming
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Becoming a Bureaucrat
There are two types of bureaucrats in the federal bureaucracy: political appointees and civil servants.
Political Appointees
The president can appoint approximately 2,000 people to top positions within the federal bureaucracy. These people are known as political appointees.
Choosing Political Appointees
The president usually receives nominations and suggestions from party officials, political allies, close advisers, academics, and business leaders on whom to appoint to bureaucratic offices. Sometimes the president appoints loyal political allies to key positions, particularly ambassadorships. This tradition is referred to as the spoils system or simply patronage.
Garfield’s Assassination
Charles Julius Guiteau, a strong supporter of the spoils system, grew angry when President James Garfield repeatedly denied him a diplomatic posting in Paris. On July 2, 1881, Guiteau shot Garfield, who later died of complications from the wound. Garfield’s assassination prompted Congress to change rules governing the selection of bureaucratic officials.
The Civil Servants
In the late nineteenth century, members of the Progressive Party argued that most government jobs should be filled with skilled experts, not unskilled political appointees. In other words, they argued that competence rather than political loyalty should determine who holds these jobs. The civil service consists of the federal employees hired for their knowledge and experience, and it constitutes most of the federal bureaucracy.
The Emergence of the Federal Civil Service
For much of the nineteenth century, presidents routinely hired political supporters to work in the bureaucracy. Over time, the federal bureaucracy became corrupt and inept, leading to calls for reform. In 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Act (also called the Civil Service Reform Act), which put limits on the spoils system for the first time. The act also created the Civil Service Commission, the first central personnel agency for the federal government. At first, civil service rules applied to only about 10 percent of federal employees, but since then Congress has expanded the civil service, so that it now encompasses about 90 percent of the bureaucracy.
President Jimmy Carter’s Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 reformed and clarified the rules of the civil service. The law created the Office of Personnel Management to replace the Civil Service Commission, and it also established the Merit Systems Protection Board to hear complaints from employees about violations of the rules.
Civil Servants
All civil servant applicants must pass an exam that measures skills related to the particular civil service position they hope to fill. Some civil service exams are general and apply to a wide range of jobs, whereas others are focused on a particular type of job. The civil service uses the merit system, meaning that it hires and promotes civil servants based on their technical skills. Most civil servants are also protected from political pressure. The best example of this protection is the fact that it is extremely difficult to fire civil servants. In theory, this job security prevents politicians from firing those who disagree with them. In practice, however, it makes it hard to fire incompetent employees.
A Bureaucratic Democracy
The power of the bureaucracy raises important questions about accountability. In a democratic system, the government is accountable to the people, yet bureaucrats are unelected, hard to fire, and wield important power. Therefore, some people view the bureaucracy as undemocratic. Others argue that Congress and the president may make the bureaucracy accountable. The president, for example, might appoint reform-minded people to head agencies or threaten to slash the budgets of recalcitrant agencies. Congress might change the laws affecting agencies or hold hearings to air grievances, which can force an agency to change its behavior.
The Bureaucracy and Policymaking
Bureaucrats put government policy into practice, and therefore the federal bureaucracy has a large impact on policymaking. In order to get their policies passed, the president and Congress must work with the bureaucracy. Controlling the bureaucracy can be difficult for the following reasons:
- Size: The president cannot monitor everyone or even every group within the bureaucracy, so much of what bureaucrats do goes unmonitored.
- Expertise of bureaucrats: The people who administer policy often know much more about those issues than the president or members of Congress. This expertise gives the bureaucrats power.
- Civil service laws: Firing bureaucrats, even for incompetence, is very difficult.
- Clientele groups: Many federal agencies provide services to thousands of people, and those people sometimes rally to defend the agency.
- Policy implementation: When Congress creates a new program, it does not establish all the details on how the policy will be implemented. Instead, Congress passes enabling legislation, which grants power to an agency to work out the specifics. Although the agency must stay within some bounds, it has a great deal of latitude in determining how to carry out the wishes of Congress.
Power of Persuasion
Presidential scholar Richard Neustadt has argued that the president’s primary power is that of persuasion. The president must lobby or persuade bureaucrats. But trying to convince members of the bureaucracy that their goals fit with the president’s goals is a time-consuming and often frustrating process. For this reason, many presidents have seen the bureaucracy as an obstacle to getting their agendas approved.
Rule-making
The federal bureaucracy makes rules that affect how programs operate, and these rules must be obeyed, just as if they were laws. The rule-making process for government agencies occurs in stages. After Congress passes new regulatory laws, the agency charged with implementing the law proposes a series of rules, which are published in the Federal Register. Interested parties can comment on the rules, either at public hearings or by submitting documents to the agency. After the agency publishes the final regulations, it must wait sixty days before enforcing those rules. During that time, Congress can review and change the rules if it desires. If Congress makes no changes, the rules go into effect at the end of sixty days.
Federal regulations affect many groups of people, who have often challenged those regulations in court. Because litigation is a slow and expensive way to change regulations, Congress passed the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990 to limit the need for litigation by opening the rulemaking process to those affected by it. The act encouraged federal agencies to engage in negotiated rule-making. If an agency agrees to the proposed regulations, for example, it publishes the proposals in the Federal Register and then participates in a negotiating committee overseen by a third party. Agreements reached by the committee are then open to the normal public review process. Parties to negotiated rule-making agree not to sue over the rules.
Administrative Adjudication
In some cases, executive agencies function like courts: They hold hearings in which each party presents arguments and evidence for or against certain rules. The executive agencies then make a decision that settles the argument between the agencies. This power is called administrative adjudication, and it involves applying rules and precedents to specific cases.
Deregulation and Reregulation
Since the Carter Administration in the late 1970s, the federal government has frequently sought to remove regulations established by earlier administrations, a practice called deregulation. The federal bureaucracy usually carries out deregulation, often with encouragement from the president. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, for example, the government deregulated the airline industry, significantly increasing competition and lowering prices. Sometimes the federal government changes its regulations significantly, a process known as reregulation.
Bureaucrats as Policymakers
In theory, federal bureaucracies merely carry out the policies enacted by Congress and the president. In practice, however, many scholars argue that the bureaucracy plays a significant role in federal policymaking via iron triangles and issue networks.
Iron Triangles
An iron triangle is an alliance of people from three groups: a congressional subcommittee that deals with an issue, the executive agency that enforces laws on that issue, and private interest groups. Often, the members of the triangle know each other well, and people frequently move from one corner of the triangle to another. The members of the iron triangle work together to create policy that serves their interests.
Example: An iron triangle might form around a particular weapons system. The Defense Department may want a new weapons system, members of congressional Armed Services Committees may want to look tough on defense by voting for a new system, and military suppliers want to make money by selling weapons systems. Therefore, it is in the interests of all three parties to push Congress to authorize the new weapons system.
Issue Networks
An issue network is a group of individuals who support a specific policy, not a broader issue. The three parts of the iron triangle are often parts of a single issue network, but other people may also be a part of the network, including experts, scholars, and the media. The influence of issue networks is similar to that of iron triangles: By working together, members of an issue network can shape and determine policy.
Reforming the Bureaucracy
Nearly every modern president has attempted to reform the bureaucracy. Some recent successful attempts at bureaucratic reform include the following:
- Sunshine laws
- Sunset provisions
- Privatization
- Increased incentives for efficiency
- Protection of whistleblowers
Sunshine Laws
In 1976, Congress passed the Government in the Sunshine Act, which required that the public have access to the proceedings and actions of the bureaucracies. Such openness is meant to encourage the public to complain about hostile or inefficient bureaucrats. Sunshine laws require government agencies to hold public meetings on a regular basis. Some proceedings, such as court meetings, top secret matters, and personnel matters that could be embarrassing can remain secret.
Sunset Provisions
Sometimes Congress passes laws with an expiration date, known as sunset provisions, because the laws will end at a specified time. For a program to continue past its expiration date, the agency must demonstrate that the program achieves its goals in an efficient manner. Sunset provisions make bureaucrats accountable for their performance: Only successful programs get renewed.
Privatization
Privatization occurs when private companies perform services that were formerly handled by a government agency. For example, the government may abolish public housing and instead give rental vouchers to residents to use in privately owned apartments. Supporters of privatization argue that private profit-driven organizations are more efficient than government bureaucracies because companies have strong incentives to be as efficient as possible. Privatization has been somewhat successful, particularly for services provided by local governments (such as trash collection). Some services do not translate well from public to private, however, and some—such as national defense—cannot be transferred to private firms at all.
Increased Incentives for Efficiency
Critics complain that government bureaucrats lack incentives to perform efficiently. To overcome inefficiency, some state governments have started offering more incentives to employees, such as financial rewards tied to job performance. The president and Congress have also required government agencies to list specific goals, and the agencies then receive feedback about how well those goals have been met. President George W. Bush’s performance-based budgeting carries this idea a step further by tying funding directly to performance.
TQM and Reinventing Government
During the Clinton Administration (1993–2001), Vice President Al Gore decided to revamp the bureaucracy. His effort, known as “Reinventing Government,” relied on Total Quality Management, a set of principles that create a culture of quality in an organization, in which everyone constantly thinks about improving performance. Gore’s efforts achieved some successes: Every year the government gave out the “Hammer Award” (named for the scandalous prices the Pentagon paid for hammers) to those who did the most to improve quality in government.
Protecting Whistleblowers
A whistleblower is a person who exposes corruption or inefficiency. As a result of blowing the whistle, some people have been demoted or fired. Congress has sought to protect whistleblowers because whistleblowers increase accountability by exposing problems. Despite the laws passed by Congress, many whistleblowers still suffer because of their actions.
