POLS 1101 1st edition Lecture 23 Outline of Previous Lecture I Congress II Presidency III Political Parties Outline of Current Lecture I Federal Bureaucracy II Development of the Federal Bureaucracy III Civil Service Reform IV Government Expansion Leads to more Bureaucracy V Cabinet VI History of Federal Bureaucracies Current Lecture I II Federal Bureaucracy Executive branch agency administering national policy o Max Weber definition for bureaucracy Division of labor Hierarchy run by set of rules some abstract some concrete Impersonality it is supposed to be impersonal so that everything is fair and even Career system once you are working there you are in for life they are very loyal Monitoring of subordinates by superiors What does the bureaucracy do o Collects information from regulated industry to do its job Problems regulated industry can have too much influence o Reduces coordination problems of enforcement and reduces transaction costs of policy implementation o But enhances power of whomever sits at the top you want to be in control of these agency s because of their power and access to things Expands range of influence and control of individuals Development of the Federal Bureaucracy Congress was wary of delegating too much power to the executive realized the impracticality of delegating too little These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute III IV Appointed individuals to head new bureaus Gave President shared power to appoint but sole power to remove Congress Dilemma of delegation o Congress is delegating more power to the President because they don t want to deal with certain stuf o Solution Power of the purse budget President dilemma of delegation o Standard P A problem o Solution Selection criteria sanctions rewards President Jackson advocated rotation in office of certain jobs o Rewarded allies and friends with jobs Because permanent led to huge problems of coordination and delegation o Weber s characteristics took hold o Red tape Patronage and corruption prevalent o With patronage comes corruption o Most people in office don t monitor corruption because their friends don t want to rat out their friends or close allies or they trust their friends and don t look for corruption Civil Service Reform Progressives pushed to make civil a career not political jobs o Pendleton Act of 1883 jobs should be doled out based on merit not politics o They wanted to get rid of patronage which would lead to getting rid of corruption Problems Bureaucracies become less responsive citizens and elected officials o It is hard to get rid of a civil servant because they are there for life unless they do a bad job o The Civil Servants are supposed to be partial and they take it to an extreme which leads to not paying attention to the citizens o Hidden Action now have experts o Hidden Information Now have experts Government Expansion Leads to more Bureaucracy Federal government expands which leads to more bureaucracy So the officials aren t paying attention to what the Citizens of the US want Reasons for Growth o Natural population growth and Congress just has too much to do or they don t know how to fix certain problems that are in the private sector so they delegate Handle large scale administrative tasks Exploit expertise V VI Avoid blame for unpopular decisions they don t want to take the blame for certain things so they send the problems to other groups of people so those people will take the blame Make credible commitments to stable policy Deal with crises demanding swift coordinated action Cabinet Until 1849 Treasury State Navy and War were only cabinet level departments o Cabinet level people are elected by the President o Department of Interior comes that year o Major victory for MCs from Western States Department of Justice in 1879 o In response to Reconstruction industrial growth History of Federal Bureaucracies Clientele agencies meeting the demand of Important constituency groups o Agriculture o Labor o Commerce DOT home to agencies established piece meal over years to promote diferent forms of transportation Agencies are created to deal with certain groups There are also non cabinet agencies o Executive agencies are independent Are not a part of the cabinet because the head of these agencies meet directly with the president When something goes wrong with NASA the President doesn t want to be caught completely ignorant of the fact The president wants to know exactly what is going on at all times o Regulatory Commission Agencies high levels of expertise Designed to maintain their independence from President and executive departments Deal with real problems and when things go wrong no one in the government wants to be blamed for it so it is completely separate from Government officials o Independent Government Corporations Provide services for private sector companies Governments create corporations that look like corporations but they are directly related to Congress It has indirect administration
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