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Chapter 15-Bureaucracy

Chapter 15-Bureaucracy. The Executive Branch and the Federal Bureaucracy. Bureaucracy A set of complex hierarchical departments, agencies, commissions, and their staffs that exist to help a chief executive officer carry out his or her duties

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Chapter 15-Bureaucracy

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  1. Chapter 15-Bureaucracy

  2. The Executive Branch and the Federal Bureaucracy • Bureaucracy • A set of complex hierarchical departments, agencies, commissions, and their staffs that exist to help a chief executive officer carry out his or her duties • Bureaucracies may be private organizations of government.

  3. The Bureaucrats

  4. Origins and Growth of the Federal Bureaucracy • 1789 only three departments under the Articles of Confederation • Foreign Affairs, War, and Treasury • Washington inherited these. • Head of each called a “secretary” • Foreign Affairs renamed Department of State • 1816 to 1861 size increased and demands increased • Post Office expanded as country grew • Major source of jobs (spoils system/patronage)

  5. Civil War and the Growth of Government • Civil War spawned need for new government agencies. • Department of Agriculture (1862) • Not given Cabinet-level status until 1889 • Pension Office (1866) • Department of Justice (1870) • Spoils system • The firing of public-office holders of a defeated political party and their replacement with loyalists of the newly elected party • Patronage • Jobs, grants, or other special favors that are given as rewards to friends and political allies for their support

  6. From the Spoils System to the Merit System • Garfield’s presidency • Besieged by office-seekers (patronage seekers) • Wished to reform the system • Irony: assassinated by a frustrated job seeker • Reaction to Garfield’s death and increasing criticism of the spoils system was the Civil Service Reform Act in 1883 • Also called the Pendleton Act • Reform measure that created the Civil Service Commission to administer a partial merit system • The act classified the federal service by grades to which appointments were made based on the results of a competitive examination. • It made it illegal for federal political appointees to be required to contribute to a particular political party. • Civil service system operated to 1978 • New version is the merit system

  7. Regulating the Economy • Growth of big business, price fixing, and other unfair business practices after the Civil War stimulated Congress to create the Interstate Commerce Commission • First independent regulatory commission • An agency created by Congress that is generally concerned with a specific aspect of the economy • Theodore Roosevelt • Department of Commerce and Labor • Woodrow Wilson • Divided it into two separate departments • Encouraged Congress to create the Federal Trade Commission • 16th Amendment

  8. Growth of Government in the 20th Century • Franklin Roosevelt • Great Depression • FDR created hundreds of new government agencies to regulate business practices and various other areas of the national economy. • WWII • Affected the economy • Manufacturing of goods related to the war • Tax rates increased and never fell again • After the war • Demands for services/new money infusion=more government • Civil Rights Movement • War on Poverty

  9. The Bureaucrats

  10. The Modern Bureaucracy • Who Are Bureaucrats • 2.7 million federal workers • 1/3 in the U.S. Postal Service • Tests usually for entry-level positions • Mid-level to upper ranges of federal positions do not normally require tests. • 10 percent of federal workforce not covered by civil service. • Appointive policy-making positions (cabinet secretaries, for example)- Schedule C • Independent Regulatory Commissioners (appointed by the president) • Low-level, non-policy patronage positions • Secretarial assistants to policy makers, for example • Many located in Washington, D.C., but many are spread out throughout the country (decentralized) • Graying of the federal workforce • Hiring of outside contractors

  11. Formal Organization • Cabinet Departments • Major administrative units with responsibility for a broad area of government operations • Indicates a permanent national interest • Government Corporations • Businesses established by Congress that perform functions that could be provided by private businesses • Example: Amtrak, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation • Independent Executive Agencies • Governmental units that closely resemble a Cabinet department but have a narrower area of responsibility and are not part of any Cabinet Department • Example: Central Intelligence Agency • Independent Regulatory Commissions • Agencies created by Congress to exist outside the major departments to regulate a specific economic activity or interest • Example: Federal Reserve Board

  12. How Bureaucracies Are Organized

  13. How Bureaucracies Are Organized

  14. Government Workers and Political Involvement • Hatch Act • Law enacted in 1939 to prohibit civil servants from taking activist roles in partisan campaigns • Could not make political contributions, work for a political party or campaign for a particular candidate • Federal Employees Political Activities Act • 1993 liberalization of the Hatch Act • Allowed federal employees to run for office in nonpartisan elections and to contribute money to campaigns in partisan elections

  15. How the Bureaucracy Works • Weber • Chain of command • Division of labor/specialization • Clear lines of authority • Goal orientation • Impersonality • Productivity

  16. How the Bureaucracy Works • Implementation • The process by which a law or policy is put into operation by the bureaucracy • Iron triangles • Relatively stable relationships and patterns of interaction that occur among an agency, interest groups, and congressional committees or subcommittees • Issue networks • The loose and informal relationships that exist among a large number of actors who work in broad policy area • Interagency Councils: working groups that bring together representatives of several departments and agencies to facilitate the coordination of policy making and implementation • Increasing complexity of policy domains • Interagency councils

  17. Making Policy • Administrative discretion • The ability of bureaucrats to make choices concerning the best way to implement congressional intentions • Rule making • A quasi-legislative administrative process that has the characteristics of a legislative act • Regulations • Rules that govern the operation of a particular government program that have the force of law • 1946 Administrative Procedures Act • Public notice of time, place and nature of rule-making proceedings provided in the Federal Register • Submission of written arguments • Statutory purpose and basis of rule to be stated • Once rule is written, 30 days must elapse before it takes effect.

  18. Making Policy • Administrative adjudication • A quasi-judicial process in which a bureaucratic agency settles disputes between two parties in a manner similar to the way courts resolve disputes

  19. Making Agencies Accountable • Executive Control • Appointments • Executive orders • Rules or regulations issued by the president that have the effect of law • Congressional Control • Constitutional powers • Power of the purse • General Accounting Office, Congressional Research Service, and Congressional Budget Office • Judicial Control

  20. Iron Triangles

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