POLS 34102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: National Partnership For Reinventing Government
29 Jun 2018
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CH 14 OUTLINE
Bureaucracy and Bureaucrats
1. Bureaucracy is simply a form of organization. The specialization and repetition of bureaucracy
are essential to the efficiency of any organization.
2. The primary tasks of bureaucracy are to implement the laws passed by Congress, to issue
rules that provide more specific indications of what congressional policy will mean, and to enforce
the laws.
3. Because legislation often sets only broad parameters for government action, this requires
bureaucracies to draw up much more detailed rules that guide the process of implementation and
also to play a key role in enforcing the laws.
4. The lower efficiency of public agencies can be attributed to the added political, judicial, legal,
and public opinion constraints put on them, as compared with those put on private agencies.
5. Through civil service reform, national and state governments have attempted to reduce
political interference in public bureaucracies by implementing a merit system for hiring and
granting certain public bureaucrats legal protection from being fired without a show of cause. At
the higher levels of government agencies, including such posts as cabinet secretaries and
assistant secretaries, many jobs are filled with political appointees and are not part of the merit
system.
6. Despite fears of bureaucratic growth, the federal service has grown little during the past 50
years. The national government is large, but the federal service has not been growing any faster
than the economy or the society.
7. Cabinet departments, agencies, and bureaus are the operating parts of the bureaucracy.
Independent agencies, government corporations, and independent regulatory commissions also
are part of the executive branch, even though they are not considered part of cabinet
departments.
Goals of the Federal Bureaucracy
1. The different agencies of the executive branch can be classified into three main groups
according to the services that they provide to the American public: promoting public welfare,
providing national security, and maintaining a strong economy.
2. Agencies that provide services and products that seek to promote the public welfare can be
considered regulatory agencies that impose limits, restrictions, or other obligations on the conduct
of individuals or companies in the private sector. Rules made by regulatory agencies have the
force and effect of law. Some of these agencies are particularly tied to a specific group or segment
of American society that is often thought of as the main clientele of that agency.
3. National security agencies can be grouped into two categories: agencies that confront threats
to internal national security and agencies that defend American security from external threats.
4. Two issues arise as agencies work to ensure the national security: the trade-offs between
respecting the personal rights of individuals versus protecting the general public, and the need for
secrecy in matters of national security versus the public's right to know what the government is
doing.
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Document Summary
Bureaucracy and bureaucrats: bureaucracy is simply a form of organization. The national government is large, but the federal service has not been growing any faster than the economy or the society: cabinet departments, agencies, and bureaus are the operating parts of the bureaucracy. Independent agencies, government corporations, and independent regulatory commissions also are part of the executive branch, even though they are not considered part of cabinet departments. Rules made by regulatory agencies have the force and effect of law. In addition, federal agencies may directly provide programs or services that bolster the economy. Can the bureaucracy be reformed: the government has sought to find various ways to make the federal bureaucracy more efficient. The key strategies used to promote bureaucratic reform include reinventing government procedures, termination, devolution, and privatization: the national performance review was an effort under president bill clinton to make the bureaucracy more efficient, accountable, and effective.
