10.7 What Are the Purpose and Function of Bureaucracies?

The Importance of Bureaucracies

Before the 1900s, especially in Europe and the Americas, government employees were small in number, and their impact was minimal. In China, however, bureaucracy has a long history, stretching back to the Qin dynasty (221–207 BCE). Many of the characteristics of modern day bureaucracy were present then.⁶² Today, in all parts of the world, government employees are significant in number, and bureaucracy affects people’s daily lives. For example, bureaucrats in Brazil number over nine million. There are even individuals known as despachantes, or “expediters,” who help individuals navigate the maze of Brazilian bureaucracy. Indeed, in Brazil the government is the largest employer.

Show Me the Data

Figure 10.15 The public sector is often the largest employer in a country, and it may employ upwards of 25% of all workers. (data source: Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators, The World Bank; attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)

In the United States, the largest private employer is Walmart, with about 2.2 million employees. By contrast, when employment across all levels of government is considered (local, state, and federal), the number of government employees in the US, excluding military personnel, is more than 10 times the number of Walmart employees. As Figure 10.15 shows, the United States is not unique in having a sizable bureaucracy.

Political and Merit-Based Approaches to Filling the Bureaucracy

Not only has the size of the bureaucracy changed considerably over the years, but how one enters government employment has also changed. Within the United States, the process of filling bureaucratic positions has moved away from being extremely political to becoming more of a merit system. In the 1800s, the process was known as the “spoils system.” Attributed to New York Senator William Marcy, the phrase “to the victor belong the spoils” describes the patronage of the spoils system.

Figure 10.16 This Thomas Nast political cartoon from 1877 criticizes the spoils system associated with President Andrew Jackson. (credit: “In memoriam—our civil service as it was / Th. Nast.” by Nast, Thomas/Library of Congress, Public Domain)

Under the patronage system, government jobs were awarded based on political loyalty. One of the reasons individuals would work for a candidate’s election was the hope of obtaining a government position because presidents had the ability to hire and fire individuals at will. President Andrew Jackson believed that this approach would result in a government that was both less corrupt and more democratic. It also suggests that government jobs did not require specialized knowledge and that virtually anyone could do the job. Of course, there were a few problems with this approach, not the least of which was that Jackson was incorrect about both the need for expertise and the hope for a more honest government.

In 1881, a disgruntled individual who did not receive the government position he believed he was promised assassinated President James Garfield. In the wake of the president’s assassination, Congress passed the Pendleton Act of 1883, creating the civil service system through which a large percentage of government jobs are filled today. That system bases hiring and promotion decisions on merit rather than on political affiliation. Hiring decisions are now determined by formal competitive examinations. They are based not on “who you know,” but instead on “what you know.”

The United States is not unique in adopting formal, competitive examination to fill its bureaucracy. Throughout Western Europe and parts of Asia, formal examination is used to fill civil service positions. Indeed, data demonstrate that some countries exceed the United States in terms of the professionalism of their bureaucracies. France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Nordic countries all score slightly higher on a bureaucratic professionalism scale.⁶⁵ In Germany in particular, bureaucrats are highly respected for their expertise and professionalism.

How Bureaucracies Function within the Political Framework

Essentially, there are three policy stages: policy formation, policy implementation, and policy enforcement. It would be natural to view the policy formation stage as belonging only to legislative bodies, with bureaucracies charged with the tasks of implementing and enforcing policies, and to be sure, bureaucracies do carry out those responsibilities. But it would be a mistake to assume bureaucracies do not form policy.

The relationship between executives and bureaucracies is a complicated one. In a hierarchical and command sense, bureaucracies typically fall under the authority of the executive branch. On the one hand, one could think of the president as the CEO of a large corporation with many departments that, on paper, report to them. On the other hand, Congress creates bureaucracies themselves through legislative action. As such, bureaucracies have more than one parent, with the legislative branch being the creator and the executive branch being the administrator. Nevertheless, bureaucracies tend to take on a life of their own and are likely to decide for themselves how best to proceed. In this sense, they have been viewed as the “prodigal child” because they are perceived to have rejected both parents and have decided what is best for themselves.⁶⁶ As Truman noted: “I thought I was president, but when it comes to these bureaucrats, I can’t do a damn thing.”⁶⁷

While bureaucracies function within set procedures and guidelines, they also have relationships with other political actors. In particular, they interact with interest groups and legislatures to form and implement policy. A traditional approach to describing the relationship is the iron triangle.

Figure 10.17 The iron triangle represents the interdependent and cooperative relationships among members of Congress, interest groups, and bureaucrats. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)

Iron triangles have the following characteristics: (1) the actors have specialized knowledge, (2) the actors work in cooperation with one another rather than in opposition, and (3) they are very stable over time. As noted in the graphic, each actor receives benefits from the other actors, which contributes to a desire to maintain the status quo. Iron triangles have been justly criticized for being fairly closed to outsiders and new information, for working in relative obscurity, and for being undemocratic. Additionally, iron triangles form around a shared interest and protecting that interest, rather than around addressing an issue. In other words, membership is defined by possessing that interest. The classic example revolves around agriculture. Members of the agriculture triangle include the USDA (bureaucracy), the House Committee on Agriculture (Congress), and the American Farm Bureau (interest group). When determining policy, discussion centers on the best course of action to protect their shared interest. Of course, that is not the only way to view these relationships.

An alternative concept is issue networks. While not denying the reality of iron triangles, the idea of issue networks recognizes that all public policy will not neatly fit into that schema. In fact, issue networks are more common today because of the multitude and complexity of public policy issues that confront a modern society. And each year seems to bring new public policy issues that could not have been anticipated. This means the concept of the iron triangle is inadequate to explain the public policy process today. Similar to iron triangles, actors in issue networks have specialized knowledge. But unlike iron triangles, issue networks are open to input from a variety of sources (such as members of the media) and are likely to include individuals with opposite viewpoints. Moreover, issue networks tend to be temporary and to form around the issue rather than around a shared interest.

Bureaucracies and the Rulemaking Process

When legislatures pass legislation, they often do so in broad strokes, with the process of filling in the details delegated to administrative agencies. At times, legislation may be vague. Through their rulemaking authority, agencies issue regulations following set procedures that include opportunity for public input. In the United States, the process is fairly straightforward and systematized. Once the president signs legislation into law, that law is assigned to an administrative agency. Agencies then propose rules providing specificity to the legislation. The proposed rules appear in the Federal Register, which is the “official journal of the United States Government” and is “published every Federal working day.”⁶⁸ See Figure 10.18.

Figure 10.18 This page from the Federal Register illustrates the process of announcing proposed rules. (credit: “The Federal Register” by The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain)

To illustrate how bureaucracies fill in the details, consider the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act). In part, the FAA Act protects consumers against deception and ensures “that labels provide the consumer with adequate information as to the identity and quality of the product.”⁶⁹ In 2011, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau proposed new regulations to add “a number of new names to the list of grape variety names approved for use in designating American wines.”⁷⁰ The announcement included instructions for where to submit comments (online, by mail, or in person) as well as the time frame for comment submission. After the comment period, final rules were promulgated. In requesting a new name be adopted, petitioners were required to demonstrate that (1) the new grape variety is accepted, (2) the name of the variety is valid, (3) the variety is used in wine making, and (4) the variety is grown and used in the United States.⁷¹ Demonstrating that not all changes are substantive, the new rule corrected a misspelling in the previous regulations: Agawam had been misspelled as Agwam. Once proposed rules are published, the public has between 30 and 60 days to comment. Agencies are required to consider them and to respond to significant comments.⁷² A significant comment is one made by more than one individual or group. Even so, agencies are not obligated to implement any suggestions made during the comment period.

This provides a wonderful opportunity for participatory democracy in which citizens can potentially have a direct impact on public policy. It must be emphasized that this is not a perfunctory process. While policies are generally not changed wholesale, policies do get tweaked or modified. The key questions are who participates and who influences. Generally, business groups comment at much higher rates than individuals and are the most influential groups.⁷³ The process demonstrates that individual actors play a role, even if that role needs be funneled through group activity.