CHAPTER 12: BUREAUCRACY

Career Service Personnel Systems

Separate personnel systems for highly specialized agencies like the Coast Guard and the Foreign Service

Where do they work?

100s of agencies: the Executive Office of the President, cabinet departments, independent executive branch agencies, regulatory commissions, government corporations, other types of agencies.

Pendleton Act

A law passed in 1883 that established the first merit-based personnel system for the federal government

Ombudsman

A person in a government agency who is responsible for hearing citizen complaints or problems related to government programs and policies

Freedom of Information Act

A public disclosure law that requires federal agencies to release information upon written request

Patronage

A system of filling government positions in which individuals receive positions through noncompetitive means. It is used both as a means for rewarding supporters and to bridge divisions within the country through access to positions of power.

Merit System

A system that stresses the ability, education, and job performance of government employees rather than their political backgrounds

Policy Subgovernments

Alliances and relationships among specific agencies, interest groups, and relevant members of Congress that have been capable of effectively exercising authority in a narrowly defined policy area, such as transportation and farm price supports. Powerful alliances often form cozy triangles, like the tobacco subgovernment; looser alliances involving a wide range of actors are called issue networks.

Office of Management and Budget

An EOP agency that acts as the President's principal link to most federal agencies. The agency supervises matters relating to program and budget requests.

White House Office

An EOP agency that includes the President's key advisers and assistants who help him with the daily requirements of the presidency

Reinventing Government

An approach to bureaucratic reform adopted by the Clinton administration that emphasized empowerment and decentralization to enhance the performance of government agencies and programs

Cabinet

An official advisory board to the President, made up of the heads (secretaries) of the major departments in the federal government

Inspector General

An official in a government agency who is assigned the task of investigating complaints or suspicious behavior

Bureaucracy

Any large, complex organization in which employees have specific job responsibilities and work within a hierarchy. The term is often used to refer to both government agencies and the people who work in them.

Bureaucratic Pathologies

Behaviors by bureaucrats that feed the idea that the bureaucracy is incompetent and unresponsive. They inclue clientelism, incrementalism, arbitrariness, parochialism, and imperialism.

What are the major problems with bureaucratic behavior, and what steps have been taken to control them?

Bureaucracies develop pathological behavior patterns: give excessive attention to the interests of those they serve (clientelism), oppose change (incrementalism), tend to be arbitrary and capricious (arbitrariness), take an overly narrow view of the world (parochialism, yield to an urge to expand (imperialism).

What are the sources of (and limits on) bureaucratic power?

Bureaucracies need power in order to function in the American political system. They derive that power from variety of sources: external support, expertise, bureaucratic discretion, longevity, skill, and leadership. Limits to bureaucratic power come from the legal and political controls exercised by the presidency, Congress, courts, and various groups.

Whistle-Blowers

Employees who risk their careers by reporting corruption or waste in their agencies to oversight officials

Political Appointees

Government officials who occupy the most strategically important positions in the federal government; most of them are appointed by the President

Regulatory Commissions

Federal agencies led by presidentially appointed boards that make and enforce policies affecting various sectors of the U.S. economy. Formally independent of the White House to avoid presidential interference, these agencies employ large professional staffs to help them carry out their many functions.

Who works in the bureaucracy?

Federal bureaucracy compises diverse group of people who occupy a variety of white-collar and blue-collar positions. Organized under several personnel systems: the ranks of political appointees, the general civil service system, career service personnel systems, and wage systems.

Wage Systems

Federal personnel systems covering more than a million federal workers who perform blue-collar and related jobs and are largely represented by unions or other associations with limited bargaining rights

Government-Sponsored Enterprises

Federally initiated organizations designed to operate as if they were privately owned and operated, usually established for specific functions that serve targeted populations, such as helping to support inexpensive student loans. Many eventually are privatized.

Quasi-Judicial Functions

Judicial functions performed by regulatory commissions. Agencies can hold hearings for companies or individuals accused of violating agency regulations. Commission decisions can be appealed to the federal courts.

Quasi-Legislative Functions

Lawmaking functions performed by regulatory commissions as authorized by Congress

Government Performance and Results Act of 1993

Legislation requiring all federal agencies to provide annual performance plans and reports to Congress

Independent Agencies

More than 200 agencies that exist outside the EOP and the cabinet departments. Reporting directly to the President, they perform a wide range of functions, from environmental protection (EPA) and managing social programs (SSA) to conducting the nation's space policy (NASA) and helping the President manage the federal government (GSA and OPM).

What do these people do?

Play important roles in the policymaking process-roles that go beyond administering government programs.

Government Corporations

Public agencies that carry out specific economic or service functions (such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Postal Service) and are organized in the same way as private corporations.

Standard Operating Procedures

Regularized procedures used in public agencies to help the agencies conduct administrative business effectively and efficiently

Spoils System

Taken from the phrase "to the victor goes the spoils," a patronage system in which government jobs at all levels are given to members of the party that has won the top political office

Proxy Administration

The government's use of indirect means to deliver public goods and services, such as contracting, grants-in-aid, loan guarantees, and government-sponsored enterprises

Executive Office of the President (EOP)

The collective name for several agencies, councils, and groups of staff members that advise the President and help manage the federal bureaucracy. The EOP was established in the 1930s; the number and type of agencies that constitute it change with each presidential administration.

What factors have led to the growth of the federal bureaucracy?

The federal bureaucracy has grown in size and changed in nature over the past 2 centuries, mostly because of increasing demands by the public and changing conditions in American society.

Senior Executive Service

The highest category of senior level federal employees, most of whom form a select group of career public administrators who specialize in agency management

Unitary Executive Theory

The idea that the Constitution gives the President the authority to oversee and manage the work of federal agencies to ensure that their priorities and actions are consistent with the views of the White House regarding existing laws and policies

General Schedule Civil Service System

The merit-based system that covers most white-collar and technical positions in the federal government

Bureaucratic Power

The power of government agencies, derived from law, external support, expertise, discretion, longevity in office, skill, leadership, and a variety of other sources

Privatization

The process of turning over the work of government agencies to the private sector