Explain how the characteristics and features of bureaucracy influence decision making after you've read this chapter.

What's at stake.

It was a Republican dream. Since Reagan came into office, the regulatory fabric of the U.S. government has been torn apart. Although Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric had been populist and antiestablishment, in one way he was following as traditional a playbook as Republicans have--shrinking the bureaucracy and getting rid of regulations, the rules that limit individual or corporate behavior, generally to protect the public good. The narrative repeated in the media emphasizes the public health benefits of required health insurance, the environmental stakes of emissions controls, the financial stability that resulted from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the open communication of an unrestricted Internet.

Government is benign, not always as efficient as it could be, but a force for the improvement of its citizens' lives.

They think it favors the collective good over the individual good. There is a strain in American political culture that puts individual profit over public welfare. The antiregulation narrative was amplified through conservative media channels until the very science in which the regulations were based came to be seen as false propaganda. Republicans have claimed that there is no need to address climate change.

The Obama administration, eight years of health care reform, stimulating up an ailing economy, establishing environmental protections, and the like incensed conservatives and provided a strong motive for Republican voters who were not attracted by Trump's ideology of grievance to vote for him anyway.

One journalist wrote about the "Trump Effect" after just nine months with Trump in office, which was the use of administrative directives to the bureaucracy to rewrite the rules according to which Americans live their lives. Trump used executive directives to reverse what Obama had done. In his first six months, Trump undid more than 800 regulations.

In his first year in office, he issued 47 executive orders to get rid of other regulations.

Among the regulations the Trump administration rolled back and the new guidelines he provided were some that face legal challenges, but others have already begun to shape American life.

For the better or the worse, regulations affect the lives we live. We will return to the question of what is at stake in rolling them back after we discuss the bureaucracy.

Most of us become bureaucrats because we don't aspire to be one. Bureaucrats make national, state, and local government work for us. They are the people who give us our driving tests, renew our licenses, deliver our mail, maintain our parks, and order books for our libraries. Bureaucrats send us our Social Security checks, find us jobs, process our student loans, and make sure we get our military benefits. bureaucrats defend our country from foreign enemies, chase our crooks at home, and get us aid in times of natural disasters. We are familiar with them as individuals. We make small talk and laugh with them. They might be our neighbors or friends. In this country, the civil service is not much appreciated or esteemed. Civil servants are often derided as lazy, incompetent, power hungry, and uncaring, and it is often the target of ridicule.

It is based on a few well-publicized bureaucratic gaffes and the frustrating experiences we all have with the bureaucracy. Signing up for a new health care policy, filling out financial aid forms, going through customs at the airport, and waiting for a package to be delivered via the U.S. The Postal Service can drive us crazy. The bureaucracy is the source of many of the rules that can help us get what we want from government, but that often irritates us with their seeming arbitrariness and rigidity. Even though they aren't elected, bureaucrats have a lot of power over us.

Bureaucracies are needed to run a government. Bureaucracy is the only ground where citizens and politics meet, the only contact many Americans have with government. Bureaucrats are often called "civil servants" because their job is to serve the civil society in which we all live.

Those at the top give the orders and those at the bottom follow them. Max Weber came up with the classic definition. A clear chain of command exists in which all employees know who their bosses are and who they are responsible for.

The effectiveness of the bureaucracy can be accomplished by having tasks divided and handled by full-time professional staffs.

Bureaucratic jobs are governed by rules and not by bureaucrats' feelings about how the job should be done. One person in a given job is expected to make the same decisions as another, because bureaucrats are limited in their discretion. It leads to standardization and predictability.

Experience and other objective criteria are used in hiring and promotions. Politics, in the form of political loyalty, party affiliation, or dating the boss's son or daughter is not supposed to play a part.

The closer governments are to achieving neutral competence, the more they will look like Weber's model. The effort to depoliticize the bureaucracy, or to take politics out of administration, by having the work of government done masterfully, according to explicit standards rather than personal preferences or party loyalties, is 5. The bureaucracy should be neutral, administering the laws of the land in a fair, efficient, and professional way, rather than being a political arm of the president or Congress.

Most of the world is bureaucratic. Organization and specialization are required for large tasks. The Wright brothers may have been able to build a rudimentary airplane, but no two people or even a small group could build one. We know that the D-Day invasion of Europe, putting a man on the moon, and the war on terrorism all take coordination and planning. Smaller in scale, but still necessary, are routine tasks like issuing driver's licenses, doing security pre-checks to make air travel easier, and processing student loans.

Applying for a loan is not fun. Imagine what the experience would be like if student loan awards were made in a democratic way.

The U.S. Department of Education shows some of the public agencies. The private sector needs efficient expertise to manage large organizations. Corporations and businesses are bureaucratic. The need for a structure of expert decision making is what distinguishes a bureaucracy. The federal bureaucracy is the focus of this chapter.

Americans don't like much of our public bureaucracy.

Bureaucratic decision making in a democratic government presents a real puzzle unless we consider that democracy may not be the best way to make every decision. Democracy is an appropriate way to make decisions if we want to ensure that many voices are heard. Though the decisions are likely to be popular, they are not necessarily made by people who know what they are doing, as it takes a long time to poll many people on what they want to do. You don't want to poll the American people when you're making a decision about open heart surgery. An expert heart surgeon can make the right decision, not the popular one, and make it quickly.

The rocket ships that formed the basis of America's space program, the level of toxic emissions allowed from a factory smokestack, and the temperature at which beef must be cooked in restaurants were all decided by democracy. When we need expertise and dispatch,cratic decision making is essential.

The public bureaucracy has to answer to many bosses who have conflicting goals.

Even if the lines of authority from the bureaucracy to the executive and legislative branches were crystal clear, no president or congressional committee would be interested in supervising the day-to-day details of bureaucratic operations. Rules are used to solve the problem of accountability within the bureaucracy and to prevent the abuse of public power at all levels. It is easier to tell if a person is doing his or her job fairly if the rules of bureaucratic policy are clearly defined.

The bureaucrat should not play favorites. The personnel officer for a city should not give preferential treatment to her neighbors or her boyfriend's brother. We don't want employees to give preferential treatment to people based on their race, religion, or sexual orientation, or to discriminate against people who are different from them. We don't want people to run their organizations at the expense of the public. We don't want the people carrying out jobs in the bureaucracy to take advantage of the power they have.

There are important trade-offs when it comes to rules in the bureaucracy. According to the goals of neutral competence, we try to achieve fairness and predictability by making the bureaucrats follow certain rules. The supervisor, boss, or policymaker can know what is likely to happen if everyone follows his or her job description. It should be possible to determine who didn't do the job if an important task is left undone.

On the positive side, bureaucrats' jobs can quickly become rule-bound; that is, deviations from the rules become unacceptable, and individuality and creativity are stifled. Sometimes the rules that bind bureaucrats don't seem relevant to the immediate task at hand, and the workers are rewarded for following the rules, not for fulfilling the organization's goals. Outcomes that have the opposite effect are often the result of rigid adherence to rules. The best way to guarantee compliance is to create a paper or an electronic record of what has been done. The bureaucracy is famous for its endless forms, which must be standardized to be sure that all the necessary information will be available.

The process for applying for a driver's license, student loan, or food stamp can be a lot of things. The red tape that seventeenth-century English officials used to bind legal documents is what we call these bureaucratic.

One of the great trade-offs of bureaucratic life is rules. We need to tie the bureaucrat to a tight set of rules if we want strict fairness and accountability. If we allow the bureaucrat discretion to try to reach goals with a looser set of rules, or to waive a rule when it seems appropriate, we may gain some efficiency, but we lose accountability. The American public is strongly committed to democratic governance, but sometimes decisions need to be made. It is necessary to have some form of expertise when making technical decisions. We want our decision makers to stick to a set of rules because we want accountability and fairness. cratic decision making and administration bring their own difficulties and challenges to governance that democracy cannot.

Explain how the features of bureaucracy affect decision making.

About half a million Americans worked for the federal government in the last year. More than two and a half million are in the executive branch. In this section we look at the evolution of the federal bureaucracy, its present-day organization, and its basic functions.

The norm of neutral competence in the bureaucracy has not always been a concern for Americans. The president, governors, and mayors were allowed to hire their friends, family, and political supporters to work in their administrations under a form of bureaucratic organization called the nineteenth century in the United States. They didn't have social media, but the personal relationships created a tightly knit web. The name of the spoils system is said to have begun with the administration of President Andrew Jackson, but he was not the first or the last politician to see the acquisition of public office as a means of feathering his cronies. patronage allowed the elected executive to use jobs to pay off political debts as well as to gain cooperation from the officials who were hired this way, thereby strengthening his base of power.

Those who get jobs for political reasons are more likely to be politically motivated than skilled in a specific area, so filling the bureaucracy with political appointees almost guarantees incompetence. The experts who are devoted to the task of the agency are discouraged because advancement is based on political favoritism rather than on how well the job is done. America's disgust with the corruption and inefficiency of the system, as well as our collective distrust of placing too much power in the hands of any one person, led Congress to institute various reforms of the American civil service, as it is sometimes called, aimed at achieving a very different sort of

Employees were not allowed to be fired for failing to contribute to political parties.

The purpose of the act was to take the pressure off civil servants. Federal employees can't be pressured to make political contributions, and civil servants can't be in leadership roles in campaigns. They can't run for federal political office, head up an election campaign, or make public speeches on behalf of candidates. They are allowed to make contributions, attend rallies, and work on get-out-the-vote drives that don't focus on one candidate or party. The Hatch Act denies federal employees activities that are open to other citizens because it seeks to counteract the political effects of the bureaucracy.

The central characteristic of the federal bureaucracy is that most of its parts were developed in a piecemeal fashion rather than coming up with a coherent plan. From the earliest days of the republic, the government had departments to handle foreign relations, money, and defense. Other government tasks have been developed as a result of historical forces, as solutions to particular problems, or as a response to different groups that want government to do something for them.

The core operations of any viable government are served by some departments. The activities that the Department of State, War, and the Treasury handle are fundamental to the smooth functioning of government made them the first cabinet offices. The Department of State deals with other nations. The air force, army, navy, marines, and coast guard are supervised by the Department of Defense when diplomacy fails. All nations need to collect taxes from their citizens to pay for their expenses. This key tax collection function is performed by the Department of the Treasury. The job of managing the national debt is overseen by the Treasury.

As we evolved into a highly urbanized society, other departments and agencies were created to meet the changing needs of the country.

There were demands for new roles for government with the growth of manufacturing and increased commerce.

The Department of the Interior was created in the 19th century to deal with the effects of the move west, including the displacement of Native Americans and the management of western public lands and resources.

Some of the negative aspects of industrialization, such as child labor abuses, filthy and dangerous working conditions, and unsanitary food production, led to calls for government intervention to manage the burgeoning marketplace of an industrialized society. The development of the independent regulatory commission began in the late 19th century with the Interstate Commerce Commission and continued into the 20th century with the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve System, and others.

New programs were put into place under the New Deal. The Social Security Administration was created as a supplement to old-age pensions. The national government became involved in the economic well-being of individual citizens for the first time. Americans expected the government to play a large role in managing the economy and in ensuring that people could work, eat, and live in decent housing. The Office of Economic Opportunity and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were created in 1964 and 1965, respectively, as a result of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

The Federal Art Project provided support to struggling artists between 1935 and 1943, creating more than 200,000 works of art for public buildings. The poster is a product of the project.

Government needed to grow because of a changing international environment. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union launched a multipronged policy effort that included investment in military research, science, education, and space exploration. The Department of Homeland Security was established in order to coordinate efforts to protect the country after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. The new department created a new bureaucratic structure, but also organized under its authority some existing agencies and bureaus, including those controlling the U.S.

The creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was part of the 2010 reform legislation known as Dodd-Frank. It was up to consumers to evaluate investments and if they were taken advantage of, that was tough luck. As financial products have become more complex, it is more difficult for consumers to be sure they are not being cheated. Congress decided a new regulatory agency was needed to prevent a repeat of the damage done by shady financial products during the crisis. You can imagine the challenges of automation and artificial intelligence in the workplace as well as the growth of the federal bureaucratic landscape. Our inability to anticipate the consequences of global, economic, and technological changes leads us to demand that government protect us.

A number of departments and agencies were created or have evolved to serve different groups who are affected by government regulatory actions and who organize to try to influence policy. Poor people may be included to which the government has decided to respond. Departments that are sensitive to the concerns of specific groups are more focused on what is good for the nation as a whole. The USDA was established in 1862 to help U.S. agricultural interests. It began by providing research information to farmers. Politicians talk about cutting back on agricultural subsidies, but no one expects the USDA to change its focus to look out for the farmer. The Departments of Labor, Commerce, Education, and Veterans Affairs have similar stories to tell.

There are four types of organizations in the federal bureaucracy: cabinetlevel departments, independent agencies, regulatory boards and commission, and government corporations. Making the job of understanding the bureaucracy more difficult, some agencies can fit into more than one of those classifications. Congress creates hybrid agencies that act like government corporations, for instance, which makes it difficult to classify an agency as one type or another.

Except for the head of the Department of Justice, who is called the attorney general, the heads of departments are known as secretaries. The president's cabinet is made up of department heads who are appointed by the president to give advice on critical areas of government affairs such as foreign relations, agriculture, education, and so on. The areas are not fixed and presidents can propose different cabinet offices. Although the secretaries are political appointees who usually change when the administration changes, they sit at the heads of the large, more or less permanent, bureaucracy we call departments. Cabinet heads have more prestige and status than other agency leaders.

The establishment of a cabinet department is a sign that the government recognizes the policy area as an important political responsibility.

The cabinet level is where groups fight hard to get their causes represented. Environmental groups tried to get the EPA raised to the cabinet level during Bill Clinton's administration. The fact that it was not elevated, despite Clinton's campaign promises on the matter, was a sign that the business and development interests that opposed environmental regulation were stronger politically. Even though the EPA is not a cabinet-level agency, its director has been asked by some presidents to meet with the cabinet, giving him or her cabinet rank and thus more status, even if the agency is not so elevated. The White House chief of staff, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. trade representative, and the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers were all in the Obama administration.

There are agencies outside the cabinet departments.

The independent agencies have a single head that is appointed by the president. Their areas of jurisdiction are more narrow than those of the cabinet departments. Congress doesn't follow a plan for how to make an independent agency.

Given the mix of political forces of the moment--that is, given what groups are demanding what action, and with what resources--it expands the bureaucracy to fit the case at hand.

The agencies are called independent because of their independence from the cabinet departments.

Some agency heads serve at the president when Congress does not agree with the current president, because it tends to insulate new agencies from presidential control by making appointments for fixed terms that do not overlap with the president's, or removing budgetary oversight from the Office of Management and Budget. Independent agencies have different freedom from judicial review.

Regulations aim to protect the public from industrial or economic danger. The Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the trading of stocks and bonds on the nation's stock markets, while the Food and Drug Administration regulates things such as how drugs must be tested before they can be marketed safely and what information must appear on the labels of processed foods and beverages.

Regulation usually pits the individual's freedom to do what he or she wants, or a business's drive to make a profit, against some vision of what is good for the public. As long as governments exist, there will be trade-offs for citizens' collective lives. The parties disagree on whether regulations are a good thing or a bad thing. How each trade-off is made among freedom, profit, and public safety is a question of ideology and public policy.

The initial roll-out of HealthCare.gov was hampered by technological problems, but once the bugs were worked out, the system took off. 20 million Americans were newly insured by the end of 2016 and many were able to stay on their parents' plans.

The number of agencies in the federal government that issue and enforce regulations about what citizens and businesses can and cannot do is a moving target. It's not surprising that regulation gets out of hand given the scope of the undertaking. Whether or not a clear case can be made for restricting action, if an agency exists to regulate, it probably will. The average cheeseburger in America is subject to over 40,000 federal and state regulations, specifying everything from the age and fat content of the cheese to the temperature at which the burger must be cooked. Those on restrictive diet need to know what they are eating, and we don't want to be ripped off by getting something other than what we paid for. Others seem silly. We sympathize with those who claim that the regulatory function is getting out of hand in American government because adult federal employees are paid to measure the speed of ketchup.

The regulatory agencies are largely independent of political influence and are located within the departments of Health and Human Services. Most independent regulatory agencies are run by a commission of three or more people who serve overlap terms, and the terms of office are usually between three and fourteen years, so that they don't coincide with presidential terms. Commission members are usually confirmed by Congress with a bipartisan vote.

The heads of the regulatory boards and commission can't be fired by the president. The expectation is that they will regulate in the public interest unaffected by current partisan preferences in order to insulate them from political pressures. What's at stake. What's at stake. Democrats believe that regulation by impartial experts can smooth out many of the consequences of an unregulated market and tend to appoint those with a record of regulatory accomplishment and scientific expertise. The difference in approach could be seen when President Barack Obama took office. The regulatory mission of agencies such as the EPA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Securities and Exchange Commission was rejuvenated by President George W. Bush's administration. The "Trump Effect" was to reverse much of the revolution, just as quietly. Unless Congress practices active oversight, a lot of the lawmaking that affects our everyday lives takes place off the public stage.

We don't think of the government as a business, but public enterprises are. The Postal Service is one of the largest businesses in the nation. Both the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Bonneville Power Administration sell electricity to citizens throughout their regions. If you ride the rails as a passenger, you travel by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. The businesses are mostly independent of both congressional and presidential influence. This independence is not insignificant. Consider how angry citizens are when the postal rates go up. The president and Congress don't get political heat for unpopular decisions because the Postal Commission is independent.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is a good example. After the Great Depression, citizens were reluctant to put their money into banks. A government guarantee of the safety of savings gave citizens more confidence than if the insurance were provided by a private company, which itself could go broke.

The national rail service did not prove profitable for private industry but was seen by Congress as a national resource that should not be lost. The post office guarantees that mail will reach the most remote corners of the country, even if it is not profitable for a private company. The post office is in financial trouble due to the decline in demand for mail service as the country conducts more and more of its business electronically, and in 2012 announced plans to downsize in an effort to save money. The postal service's survival has been aided by the rise of online shopping at private companies like Amazon.

The laws, policies, and regulations of the government are administered by federal bureaucrats at the broadest level. The policy area in which the bureaucrat is employed affects the work he or she does. Rules and policies are administered by a part of the bureaucracy that is responsible for a lot of social and economic life.

Bureaucrats can also administer the laws. The principle of separation of powers by which the functions of making, administering, and interpreting the laws are carried out by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches tends to be dissolved at the level of the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is an all-in-one policymaker. It makes and judges compliance with the laws. The problems of control and accountability are created by the wide scope of bureaucratic power.

We expect the agencies of the federal government to follow the laws passed by Congress. Under the ideal of neutral competence, a public bureaucracy serves the political branches of government in a professional, unbiased, and efficient manner. This is what bureaucrats do, and they do it with admirable ability and dedication.

The rangers in the national parks help citizens enjoy our natural resources, police officers enforce the statutes of criminal law, social workers check for compliance with welfare regulations, and postal workers deliver letters and packages in a timely way. The law that these bureaucrats are carrying out has been made elsewhere.

There is a picture of the bureaucrat as an impartial administrator removed from political decision making. In administering national policy, the bureaucracy has a lot of latitude.

Congress frequently passes laws that are vague, contradictory, and overly general because it lacks time, the technical expertise, and the political coherence to write clear and detailed legislation. The bureaucracy has to fill in the gaps to carry out the laws.

Congress has delegated some of its power to the bureaucracy. Its role is here. Bureaucrats must use their own judgement in order to carry out the laws of Congress. Congress doesn't say how many park rangers should be assigned to each park, and the Park Service has to interpret the law and make decisions on thousands of other specifics.

Bureaucratic discretion can be used to allocate personnel and other administrative details. Congress can't make decisions about specifications for military aircraft, the advice the agricultural extension agents should give to farmers, or whether the latest sugar substitute is safe for soft drinks. All those details must be filled in by the appropriate bureaucracy. Insurers were not allowed to implement unreasonable premium increases unless they first submitted justifications to federal and state officials. It was up to the bureaucracy to define "unreasonable", which would have a huge impact on how the law was implemented.

The source of information for thousands of interests affected by decisions in Washington must be publicized before new regulations become effective. The public and interest groups have a chance to be heard before the rules are adopted.

The third function of government is the process of interpreting the law in specific cases for potential violations and deciding the appropriate penalties when violations are found. The courts do this.

A lot of adjudication in America is carried out by the bureaucracy. Regulatory agencies make many of the rules that govern the conduct of business, but they are also responsible for seeing that individuals comply with their regulations.

The agencies' decisions have the full force of law, even though they are less formal than the proceedings of the courts. If Congress doesn't like an agency ruling, it can try to change it by passing new legislation or by more subtle pressures. The legislative process in Congress can be difficult to overcome.

The general workforce is reflected fairly accurately by the full civilian workforce of the federal bureaucracy. Females make up 48.6 percent of the U.S. labor force and 48.6 percent of the civil service. African Americans make up 12.3 percent of the civilian workforce and 18.7 percent of the civil service. The picture is disturbed by the fact that not all bureaucratic positions are equal. The upper grades are staffed by well-educated white males, and policymaking is done at the highest levels. minorities are underrepresented in the policymaking levels of the bureaucracy, among other reasons, to solve citizens' common problems and to provide goods and services that the market does not or cannot provide.

Problem solving and service providing are done by the bureaucracy. Congress and the president define the problems, make initial decisions, and assign responsibility for solving them to a department, an agency, or a regulatory board.

The bureaucracy must be dealt with by groups of citizens who want something from the government. The bureaucrats have a stake in performing their mandated jobs in a political context in which Congress and the president may not know what those jobs are.

Administering the laws to make them and judging compliance with them is what bureaucrats need to do. Though we separate power, and check and balance it among all our elected officials, it is curious that where the officials are unelected and not accountable to the people, powers are fused and to a large extent unchecked. The federal government is powered by the bureaucracy.

Politicians and bureaucrats are wary of the effects of politics on decision making. If only the struggle over competing interests could be set aside through an emphasis on strict rules and hierarchical organization, fairness and efficiency could be achieved. The struggle can't be set aside. Politics is a fundamental human activity, and it is always shaped by the rules and institutions in which it is played out. Politics within the bureaucracy takes on its own cast according to the context in which it takes place.

Procedures of an organization is the context in which internal bureaucratic politics is shaped. Take a look at any place you've been employed. Over time, the accepted standards of behavior may not have been clear, but you figured out who had power, what your role was, which rules could be bent, and what the goals of the enterprise were. It's a way of saying that you understood the power narrative in your workplace. You might come to share some of the values of your colleagues with your work. The culture of the workplace is influenced by those things. Bureaucratic culture is just one example of workplace culture.

Understanding the four main elements of bureaucratic culture will take a long time. The elements define what is at stake within a bureaucracy, and what bureaucrats need to do to ensure that they are winners in the bureaucratic world.

Good bureaucrats are committed to the policy issues their agency is tasked with. An employee of the USDA will eventually come to believe that agricultural issues are among the most important facing the country, even if he or she never thought about farming before. In the same way, those working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration place a priority on investigating outer space, while bureaucrats at the National Institutes of Health place a priority on health research. They will share a commitment to their policy area because their jobs depend on it, and also because all the people around them believe in it.

New bureaucrats may sound like bureaucrats when they start to see the logic of doing things bureaucratically.

The use of abbreviations can make communication more efficient for those in the know, which is why Bureaucratese was developed. The use of bureaucratese seems to be an effort to avoid responsibility, and to make the author appear more authoritative by using more and longer words than are really necessary.

Bureaucrats rely on the rules because they don't have to rely on their own judgement. They know that if their decisions are not clearly within the rules, they can be vulnerable. They adjust to the organization in which they are dependent on their superiors for work assignments, promotions, budget allocations, and vacation authorizations. The superiors have the same relationships with their bosses.

In a bureaucratic environment where deference, cooperation, and obedience are emphasized and rewarded, and the relentless rule orientation and hierarchy can wear down all but the most committed independent souls, free spirits are not likely to thrive.

There are specific areas of responsibility for departments, agencies, and bureaus.

Most bureaucrats spend their entire professional lives working in the same area, often in the same department. Lawyers in the Justice Department, scientists at the National Science Foundation, physicians at the National Institutes of Health, and even soybean experts at the USDA all have specialized knowledge as the base of their power.

Because of their expertise, bureaucrats know a lot more about their policy areas than the public or politicians do. The bureaucrats have a lot of power when it comes to policymaking situations.

The three characteristics of bureaucratic culture discussed so far are identification with and protection of the agency. As bureaucrats become attached to the policy interests of their agencies, committed to the rules and structures of the bureaucracy, concerned with the fortunes of their superiors, and appreciative of their own and their colleagues' specialized knowledge, they identify their interests with those of their agencies. They will identify with the department because they believe in what it does, not just because their job depends on it, but also because they believe in what it does.

There are a number of political consequences to this pervasive bureaucratic culture.

It fosters values of commitment and loyalty to what could otherwise be seen as an impersonal and alienating work environment. It means that the people who work in the federal government believe in what they do and do it well.

There are negative consequences to bureaucratic culture. Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002 that the culture likely had a role in the failure of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to anticipate and prevent the attacks of September 11, 2001. The office in Minneapolis knew that a possible terrorist was looking to take flying lessons.

Minneapolis agents tried to get a warrant to search his computer, but couldn't because they didn't have one. The implicit norm that field agents did not go over the heads of their superiors was the subject of her testimony. She told the committee that there was a strong order. Seven to nine levels is ridiculous.

It was bureaucratic culture that kept the FBI from knowing what information it had prior to September 11. The cultures are not the same. The FBI is mostly a law enforcement agency. The CIA's anti-terrorist activities prior to September 11 were focused on investigations of terrorist attacks, but not on preventing attacks against domestic targets. It is more secretive and focused on plans and intentions than on evidence and convictions. The agents focus on relationships.

The two agencies need to work with each other, but they are worlds apart because of their different approaches to life, wrote a reporter covering the two agencies. They can barely communicate in different languages.

It is relatively easy to cover up agency mistakes when they are charged with making the rules. This would not be a big problem if Congress, the media, and the public had enough information. One of the places where the channels of communication are narrow and the news is limited is where specialization concentrates the expertise and information in the hands of the agencies. The media and Congress are both generalists. They can tell something has gone wrong when terrorists attack the United States, but they can't evaluate the hundreds of less obvious problems that may have led to the failure to warn.

In the absence of facts, imaginations run wild.

Congress tried to check the temptation for bureaucrats to cover up their mistakes by offering protection to employees who expose instances of error, corruption, or waste in their agencies. They are not popular with their bosses. An independent agency was established to protect employees from being retaliated against for exposing wrongdoing. The act's intention to protect whistleblowers is one way to counteract the negative tendency of organizational behavior, but it does little to offset the pressure that bureaucrats are under to protect their programs and agencies from harm, embarrassment, and budget cuts. The law didn't work as supporters had hoped. Over the past ten years, there have been an average of 835 complaints of punishment by the agency.

There is a problem with distinguishing valid claims of government wrongdoing from illegal behavior, or distinguishing insider information that is used to feed partisan attacks on an administration from valid information about coverups or bureaucratic wrong-doing. partisan noise made it difficult to determine if any of the claims had merit.

There is a huge gulf between those who are appointed by the president and those who are long-term civil service employees. About 3,500 of the two million employees in the U.S. civil service are appointed by the president or his or her immediate subordinates.

Government employees can feel protective of the legacy and mission of the agency they work for. If the agency's mission is not a priority for a president, or if it runscounter to the president's own goals, it can lead to low morale. NASA and the EPA are concerned about the Trump administration's skepticism about climate change.

Presidential appointees are sometimes considered "birds of passage" by the career service because of the regularity with which they come and go. Appointees have their own careers or the president's agenda as their primary objective rather than the long-established mission of the agency. The rank-and-file civil service employees are committed to their agencies. When the ideology of a newly elected president varies sharply from the central values of the agency, there can be major rifts. It has been found that presidents want to put their own people, rather than career civil service managers, in the higher ranks of agencies that do not agree with their policy preferences. The emphasis on climate science in resource management was reduced, a ban on coal mining on federal lands was eliminated, and most of the U.S. offshore areas were opened up to oil and gas exploration.

As "birds of passage," political appointees have short-term professionals who serve long tenures in their positions. The average upper-level civil servant has worked in his or her agency for over seventeen years, and expects to remain there after the president leaves office. The career bureaucrats have time to work on their side, even though the political appointees have higher positions of authority. When a political appointee presses for a new policy direction, the best strategy is to stall, which is easy to achieve in a bureaucratic environment.

Presidents who want to institute an innovative program are better off starting a new agency than trying to get an old one to adapt to new tasks because of the difficulty in dealing with the entrenched bureaucracy. When President John F. Kennedy wanted to start the Peace Corps, he could have added it to any number of departments. The problem was that either these existing agencies were not willing to accept the idea that non professional volunteers could do anything useful or that they were likely to subvert them to their own purposes. President Kennedy was easily persuaded to have the Peace Corps set up as an independent agency, a frequent occurrence in the change-resistant world of bureaucratic politics.

Individual bureaucrats want to succeed in their jobs. Time, bureaucratic culture, and rigid nature of bureaucratic rules are in their favor. Congress has helped bureaucrats who wish to challenge an agency to correct a perceived wrong or injustice by passing the Whistleblower Protection Act. The president and his political appointees have their own agendas for advancement, as do the bureaucracy. The civil service can easily surpass them and prevail.

If you're thinking that being a bureaucrat means being chained to a desk from 8 to 5 every day and filling out endless stacks of paperwork, you're wrong. A passionate and devoted outdoorswoman, she is a steward of the recreational trails, and a conservator of the environment. There is nothing stuffy about her, she is also a bureaucrat.

She works for the U.S. Forest Service and is focused on trail management. People are connected to each other. When I was a child, they connected me to my dad and mom. People are connected to their communities. They connect people to their past, their present, their spiritual sense, and they connect all of us to our future. The trails are wonderful, they're wild, and they wind through beautiful places.

The path to the job she loves began as a daughter of parents who were very committed to volunteering. After graduating from college, she joined the Peace Corps and fell in love with another person while working at Glacier National Park.

It would be almost five years before they returned home again, after three years in Honduras, where they helped set up a program for underprivileged kids to spend time in the outdoors, eating healthy food, working hard and feeling valued.

After a dozen years in Alaska, they were hired by the U.S. Forest Service and are now back in Idaho.

It's easy to forget that she is a government employee, not something that fills every heart with joy and satisfaction. The two go hand in hand.

The students that I deal with now are mostly concerned with the environment. They see government as a way to manage public lands. They see government as a way to get in and make a difference. If you don't like what the government is doing, you can help change it.

Other students might look from the outside towards the government and go "ewwww". I think we need government and I see it as our government. Government gives us roads and health standards.

We have a responsibility to contribute because we are all part of the Republic. In any area of interest, I'm big on service. It's about citizen advocacy and citizen stewardship to contribute to the greater good. I believe that we have a responsibility to do that, as opposed to simply watching or criticizing.

Stewardship is enjoying the opportunities we have been given. It's the great public lands and natural resources, clean air and healthy water, our trails and wilderness areas, our wild and scenic rivers. We have a responsibility to take care of the resources we have and help make the right decisions for their future management. We all have a responsibility to do something positive for our future, whatever it is, our work, our choices, how we spend our weekends, how we vote.

The big piece is that. That is the hard part.

The bureaucracy is not an official branch of government since it falls within the executive branch, but it is still called the fourth branch of government because it wields so much power. It can be checked by other agencies, by the executive, by Congress, by the courts, and even by the public. The political relationships between the bureaucracy and other actors in American politics are examined in this section.

Agencies are committed to their policy areas, their rules and norms, and their own continued existence. The agencies are competing for a limited amount of federal resources and political support. They all want to protect themselves and their programs, and they want to grow to avoid cuts in personnel and budgets.

To appreciate the agencies' plight, we need to see it from their point of view. The media and elected officials like to target bureaucrats.

Their budgets are reviewed by congressional committees and the president's budget department.

Agencies are compelled to work for their survival.

In an uncertain and changing political environment, they have to act positively in order to keep their programs and their jobs.

Groups of supporters are one way agencies compete to survive.

The general public and interest groups are important for agencies because members of Congress are sensitive to voters' wishes. Congress will not want to cut an agency's budget if it will anger a lot of people.

Agencies try to control services that are important to important groups. The groups are obvious in most cases. Department of Agriculture employees work hard for farming interests, not just because they believe in the programs, but also because they need strong support from agricultural clienteles to survive.

The IRS, whose mission is tax collection, has few groups to support them because their work does not earn them a lot of fans. The survival incentives for bureaucratic agencies do not encourage agencies to work for the broader public interest but rather to cultivate special interests that are likely to be more politically active and powerful.

This is a problem even for independent regulatory commissions. Commissions become creatures of the interests they are supposed to regulate. The regulatory bureaucrats come to share the views of the regulated industries as they become more immersed in a policy area. The general public doesn't hire teams of lawyers, consultants, or lobbyists to represent its interests, so the larger public's preferences tend to be less well formed. There is a lot at stake for the regulated industries.

One way to stay alive is to offer services that no other agency provides. There are departments and agencies that deal with specific problems. They don't want to overlap with other agencies because it could lead to congressional cuts. In many instances, agencies reach explicit agreements about dividing up the policy turf in an effort to avoid competition.

Good public policy can be undermined by turf jealousy. For example, the military. The armed services successfully resisted a unified weapons procurement, command, and control system. Each branch wanted to keep its independence in weapons development, logistics, and communications technologies, which cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

It was difficult to get the branches to give up control of their turf.

One of the president's jobs is that of chief administrator. A clear chain of command is suggested by the organizational charts of departments and agencies. Being "the boss" doesn't mean that the boss always gets his or her way. The relationship between the president and the bureaucracy has been frustrating. Presidents have more or less clear policy agendas that they believe they have been elected to accomplish, and with amazing consistency complain that their own departments and agencies are unresponsive. Although the president has some authority over the bureaucracy, it's different perspectives and goals that make it hard for the chief administrator to plan.

The mayor of San Juan and the governor of Puerto Rico asked the president to declare the island a federal disaster area after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. The Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived soon after to assess the damage and coordinate relief and aid, but the government response was not up to par.

Presidents can often use the mechanisms of the bureaucracy to accomplish some of their goals, but also through other administrative suggestions, directives, and encouragement. When working with Congress is too controversial or impossible, presidents can use existing laws to achieve some of their preferred polices. Through the EPA, directives to agencies in the Department of Homeland Security not to deport Dreamers or their families, and the Justice Department's determination that the Defense of Marriage Act was not constitutional, Obama was able to make strides on climate change policy. He directed the Justice Department not to use its limited resources to challenge state marijuana laws that ran counter to federal law, and he directed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to close the so-called gun show loophole. What's at stake.

Trump reversed a lot of what Obama did by undoing his directions to the bureaucracy. His decision to separate refugee families at the border was clearly his interpretation of a law that had never been used before, even though he blamed Democrats for it. The Department of Justice in the refugee case can help the president make policy changes by not obstructing them if Congress is hostile. There are a few ways in which presidents can shape the bureaucracy.

Presidents have the power to control the bureaucracy. The power of appointment is the first. The heads and the next layer of undersecretaries and deputy secretaries are appointed by the president. The cabinet secretaries and agency administrators are in charge of the departments and agencies. The president's formal power is often watered down by the political realities of the appointment and policymaking processes.

The departments and agencies that serve the president's policy goals should be directed by the cabinet secretaries. Many of the political appointees that the president selects have to be approved by the Senate. The start of the president's administration is when the process begins. The president is trying to gain support for his or her overall program and doesn't want to make choices that are considered too controversial. The desire for early widespread support means that presidents tend to play it safe and nominate individuals with extensive experience in the policy areas they will oversee. The president's men and women have different loyalties because of their background. They arrive on the job with some sympathy for the special interests and agencies they are to supervise on the president's behalf.

In order to achieve political control over agencies, recent presidents have expanded the number of their appointees at the top levels of agencies, especially those agencies whose missions are not consistent with the administration's policy agenda. One of his most trusted personal advisers was appointed to head the Department of Justice.

President Obama's appointees had less of an eye to their ideological views than to their scientific expertise. Senate Republicans were unwilling to approve many of Obama's recommendations because they disapprove of the agencies' regulatory mission. The Constitution allows the president to make appointments without Senate approval when Congress is not in session, which is why Obama wanted to get his nominations through with the use of recess appointments.

The presidents of both parties have used the strategy to get around the Senate's opposition to emergency appointments. In Obama's case, the Republican House refused to recess in order to prevent an Obama recess appointment, keeping the Senate in session even while taking breaks. The president's appointment to the National Labor Relations Board was invalid after the Supreme Court sided with the Senate in the case of the practice being challenged. One hundred days into his administration, 87 percent of his executive branch positions were unstaffed. Difficult to find career bureaucrats who want to be associated with his administration's eccentric approach to governing, and they have experienced high turnover. He fills the positions that he is interested in, leaving others NationMaster NationMaster NationMaster NationMaster NationMaster NationMaster NationMaster.

The budget process is the second major power that presidents have in dealing with the bureaucracy. The agencies send their preferred budget requests to the Office of Management and Budget about fifteen months before the budget request goes to Congress. The president's budget, which is sent to Congress, is a good statement of the president's overall program for the national government, reflecting priorities, new initiatives, and intended cutbacks. The civil servants who testify before Congress are expected to defend the president's budget.

They defend the president's budget in their prepared statements. Civil servants have contact with interest group leaders, congressional staff, the media, and members of Congress themselves.

The agencies' real preferences are known to sympathetic members of the key authorizations and appropriations committees regardless of what the president wants. The president's budget is a starting point for negotiations, but Congress can add to or cut back presidential requests most of the time. The president's budget powers are not comparable to an agency with strong interest group and congressional support.

The president can try to reorganize the bureaucracy, combining some agencies, eliminating others, and generally restructuring the way government responsibilities are handled. President Trump has proposed a massive reorganization of bureaucracy to make the government more efficient to suit his ideological inclinations, but they are limited in their efforts by the need for congressional approval.

Whether or not this effort is successful, Trump has reorganized the bureaucracy in another way.

The prestige of the office is the final major power that presidents have over the bureaucracy. Everyone is impressed by the Office of the President. The power of persuasion and the weight of the office can produce results for presidents who want to change an agency. Few bureaucrats could ignore a legal order from the president of the United States. Presidents have limited time in office, their political pressures are many, and they need to choose their priorities carefully. The media won't allow presidents to worry about programs that they think are trivial. The president and his staff have to move on to other things. The temptation for a bureaucracy that does not want to cooperate with a presidential initiative is to wait it out, to take the matter under study, or to be able to accomplish only a small part of the president's agenda. The process of regaining whatever ground it lost can begin with the agency or department. After the current president leaves, it will be there.

In the long run, individual members of Congress have more control over what the executive branch does than it does over the bureaucracy.

This is not due to a grant of power by the Constitution, but rather to informal policymaking relationships that have grown up over time and are now institutionalized. Much of the influence over the bureaucracy is exercised by Congress.

An iron triangle is a tight alliance between congressional committees, interest groups, and representatives of regulated industries, in which policy comes to be made for the benefit of all three, not for the benefit of the public. Politicians are aware of the dominance of power. "As everyone in this room knows, but few people outside of Washington understand, questions of public policy nominally lodged with the Secretary are often decided far beyond the Secretary's reach by a trinity--," said the former secretary of health, education, and welfare.

As oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico from the ruined oil rig, the Minerals Management Service, an obscure agency that few citizens had heard of, was blasted into the news. The MMS, which was in charge of issuing leases, collecting royalties, and overseeing the dangerous work of offshore drilling for oil and gas on America's continental shelf, was accused of having cozy and even illegal relationships with the industry it was charged with regulating. Agency employees accepted meals, gifts, and sporting trips from the oil industry, and some of them were accused of having sex and using drugs with industry employees.

J. Steven Griles was a lobbyist for the oil industry before he joined the government. "Obviously we're all oil industry," the line between the industry and its district manager said. All of us are from the same part of the country. Most of our inspectors have worked for oil companies. They were raised in the same towns. The goal of maximizing oil and gas production was shared by the industry and agency, but little more than a whisper of concern for the effects of what was believed to be an unlikely accident. Many key congressional leaders of the committees with jurisdiction over oil and gas drilling policies are from states with large petroleum interests. Most of the members of the House Committee on Natural Resources and its subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources receive substantial contributions from the oil and gas industry, as their districts have major financial interests in oil and gas production.

The oil industry, the MMS, and members of Congress with responsibility for overseeing the agency all possessed interests in protecting energy production that reinforced one another in a cozy triangle and ignored the general public's interests in avoiding environmental catastrophe and receiving the appropriate royalties from oil and gas use. The drug and sex scandals, along with the media's coverage of the disaster, spurred the Obama administration to reorganize the agency, now called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The intertwined interests of members of Congress who serve on committees that oversee agencies that regulate the industries that affect voters in their districts are a fundamental part of our political-economic system. The First Amendment guarantees that citizens and industry are free to petition Congress for their grievances.

The iron triangle is a metaphor that has been refined by scholars, who speak instead of issue networks. The network idea suggests that the relationships are more complex than a simple triangle. There are clusters of interest groups, policy specialists, consultants, and think tanks that are influential in policy areas. In order to continue with the offshore drilling example, environmental groups monitor the environmental records of members of Congress, and outside groups use existing laws to force agencies like the BOEM to change their procedures. The Center for Biological Diversity wanted to file a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior for failing to get appropriate environmental permits. The concept of an iron triangle does not always include all the actors in a particular policy area.

The full range of politics is better captured by the concept of issue networks.

The traditional role of oversight is for Congress to check on the executive branch, but partisan differences can influence the investigations. The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on social media influence in the 2016 U.S. elections. Democrats are eager to investigate further now that they have a majority in the House.

Congressional control of the bureaucracy is found more in the impact of congressional committees and subcommittees than in the actions of the institution as a whole. Congress passes the laws that create the agencies, assigns them their responsibilities, and funds their operations.

Congress can change the laws under which the agencies operate frequently. Congress has the power to control the bureaucracy. It has access to a lot of information that helps it monitor the bureaucracy. This monitoring process is called agency behavior through required reports, oversight hearings and testimony by experts, and reports by congressional agencies such as the Government Accountability Office, and from constituents and organized interests. During the first six years of the George W. Bush administration, the Republican majority was more focused on supporting the president than on protecting congressional prerogatives. When a congressional consensus exists on what an agency should be doing, or at least that Congress should monitor what the agency does, congressional control is fully effective.

The control that committees and subcommittees exert on the bureaucracy is not the same as the control Congress exercises as a whole.

The subcommittee policy preferences don't always reflect the full Congress' preferences. In being responsive to the relevant committees and subcommittees, members tend to gravitate to committees in which they have a special interest, either because of the member's background and expertise or because of the committee's special relevance for the home constituency.

Agencies can be sued if they don't follow the law.

If a citizen disagrees with an agency ruling, he or she can take the case to the courts. The courts have been important in some cases. The timber industry is a highly controversial example.

The Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service were sued by environmentalists. They sought protection for the spotted owl. Despite opposition from the timbering interests of the region, logging was restricted in the area in 1992. As the timber industry gained ground, the environmental groups were back in court.

The courts play a small role in controlling the bureaucracy. Since the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, the courts have tended to defer to the expertise of the bureaucrats when agency decisions are appealed.

Congress puts the decisions of many agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, beyond the reach of the courts. When members expect they will agree with the decisions of an agency but are unsure about what the courts will do, they do this.

The IRS and immigration have their own units to resolve disputes. The courts' time is limited even without these restrictions. The courts can only act on certain decisions that someone feels sufficiently aggrieved to take the agency to court. The agencies make new decisions when the court proceedings drag on. The courts can decide cases that have an influence on how the bureaucracy operates, but only in certain instances.

All of Washington and beyond have something at stake in bureaucratic politics.

The agencies battle over scarce resources, using the tools of constituency building to keep pressure on Congress to maintain their funding levels, and keeping their functions separate from other agencies even if the result is redundant and inefficiency.

Presidents can use a variety of techniques to control the bureaucracy, but they are generally unsuccessful at wresting control from the bureaucrats due to time constraints and the weight of bureaucratic norms.

Congress has a lot at stake in its dealings with the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is ultimately responsible for Congress. It's hard to say that Congress is a whole institution guided by a common interest, but individual members of Congress have identifiable interests. Members of Congress have a lot of input into what the bureaucracy does because they often take place at the committee and subcommittee levels.

Political cartoons are more than just cartoons. They tend to avoid humor altogether, going for outrage, indignation, ridicule, or contempt. They often target well-known public figures, such as the president or a well-known business leader. cartoonists use their pens and wits to shine light on less glamorous and less recognizable aspects of the political system.

The bureaucracy is almost by definition an unsexy subject.

Stories about federal agencies are usually boring, and a photograph can't say much about what they do. A cartoonist with both words and pictures and armed with an arsenal of devices can make profound and attention- grabbing statements about topics that otherwise might be ignored. Critical thinking skills are important with this onslaught of weapons aimed at you. Permission was granted for this article to be reproduced.

Political cartoons don't try to inform you about current events because they assume you already know what happened. Their job is to comment on the news, and so your first step is to be aware of what's happening in the world. The situation being lampooned is the nature of bureaucracy.

Many cartoonists don't limit their art to real people.

Some people will use a generic person to represent a group. The subject is almost-faceless and plays off the idea that bureaucrats are not real people.

Without a key to the symbols that cartoonists use, their art can be hard to understand.

Elephants are Republicans, donkeys are Democrats, and Uncle Sam stands in for the United States. The symbols are combined in unique ways. A symbol of bureaucracy, the lack of a full face for the bureaucrat reduces him to his title.

The cartoonist is poking fun at the bureaucracy's efforts to be less bureaucratic.

Questions are based on the PoliticalCartoons.com teachers' guide.

The picture that emerges from a look at the politics of the bureaucracy is one of a powerful arm of government, somewhat answerable to the president, more responsible to Congress, but with considerable discretion to do what it wants, often in response to the special interests of clientele groups or regulated industry. If anyone is forgotten in this policymaking arrangement, it is the American public, the average citizens and consumers who are not well organized and who may not even know that they are affected by an issue until the policy is already law. The relationship between the bureaucracy and the public can be looked at to determine how the public interest is considered in bureaucratic policymaking.

We need to figure out what the public interest is in a democracy.

Some interests would be disadvantaged by a notion of the public good, no matter how benign. The manufacturers of bombs, warplanes, and tanks are disadvantaged by peace because of legislation promoting clean air and water. The point is not to argue that there is no public interest, but to point out that in a democracy it can be difficult to reach consensus.

Increasing the number of people who have input into deciding what it is is the best way to determine the public interest. The most organized, vocal, and well-financed interests are usually heard by politicians. The interest that would be expressed by the less vocal, poorer parts of society is usually referred to as the public interest. Efforts to bring more people into the bureaucratic policymaking process so as to make policy more responsive to more citizens are the focus of the final section.

Congress made citizen participation a central feature in the policymaking of many agencies in order to increase bureaucratic responsiveness and sensitivity to the public. It is still not an open democratic process despite the opening up of media channels to increase transparency and engagement. Increased transparency has led to decisions of agencies being made by members of the public. In the executive branch, there are more than 1,200 such committees. The people who participate on these councils are usually chosen by the agencies and have special credentials or interests relevant to the agencies' work. The general population is not reflected in the citizen advisory council.

The existing programs and recommended expansion have been favored by all.

The members of the council were chosen from people who thought highly of Social Security. The outsiders tended to become insiders as they were drawn into the council's deliberations. Advisory council reports paved the way for program executives to make their own recommendations. The public is not immune to the forces that create iron triangles.

Efforts have been made to make the bureaucracy more accessible. Meeting of policymakers be open to the public enhances citizen access. The Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976 requires important agency reviews, hearings, and decision-making sessions to be open to the public. National security and personnel meetings are exempt.

Unless one can find out that the meeting is being held, the right to attend is meaningless. All hearings, proposed rules, and new regulations have to be published in advance in order for the public to comment on them.

The Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1966 and has been amended many times since. The act gives citizens the right to get copies of public records. Evidence used in agency decisions, correspondence pertaining to agency business, research data, financial records, and so forth are included in these records. The agency has to give the information requested or let the person know which provisions of the Freedom of Information Act allow the agency to keep the information.

The confidentiality of Social Security, tax, and related records is ensured by the procedures set up.

Most citizens may not have practical access to these reforms. Many citizens feel that they are not getting the full story from government agencies, but they do not have a lot of idea of what it is. Few of us ever use the Freedom of Information Act.

Few Americans try to gain access to the bureaucracy because of the generally accepted narrative that tells us that it is too big, too remote, too complex, and too devoted to special interests. You can't take on the federal government if you can't fight city hall. The public doesn't like the bureaucracy or the government, but it does like its interactions with individual bureaucrats and agencies. The citizens hear what people with political points of view have to say.

The way that federal agencies and departments are portrayed in the media may be one reason.

Few Americans respect the bureaucracy or the job it does.

The 1966 Freedom of Information Act allows citizens access to declassified documents at the state and federal levels. It can be next to impossible to piece together the actual events or facts surrounding an event when access isdenied so frequently, and that declassified should mean.

Kenneth Meier, a political scientist, suggests that the United States has managed to get a better bureaucracy than it deserves because of the citizen's attention to it. He places the responsibility for maintaining the quality of the system squarely with the citizens and suggests that they contact bureaucratic agencies about issues of concern.

Public participation in democracy and bureaucracy may be required to keep the republic.

Let's revisit: What's at stake.

The regulations enacted by the Obama administration were discussed at the beginning of the chapter. He was successful in many cases. Regulations are controversial, but affect our lives in many different ways.

Most of us probably don't want to live in an unregulated life because we know that we can swallow pills, eat dinner, or put our kids to sleep at night with a reasonable assurance that disaster will not befall us. Government is the only one in a position to provide protection when life is hazardous.

Like many things in life, this is a line-drawing problem. Everyone wants to regulate murder and poisonous pills, but not everyone wants to protect the environment or limit the cost of college loans.

The regulations of the Obama years were designed to protect the environment, protect the health of individuals, manage the economic crisis and keep the less fortunate segments of the population from being taken advantage of. If you think about it, most of those things are expensive to wealthy people while giving benefits to the less well off.

There will be huge business savings and increased profits for many industries without government telling them to be socially responsible because wealthier people have a stake in getting rid of them. Supporters argue that these savings and profits will trickle down to workers and consumers, though much ink has been spilled debating this point.

Fiscally conscious people have a stake in rolling back regulations because the bureaucracy is often inefficient and wasteful, and many things cost more than they need to. Even if regulations cost more in the short run, they can still save money in the long run.

The fact that health care costs were coming down for everyone was made clear in this chapter. Saving the environment now is cheaper than trying to colonize space when we deplete this planet.

Eliminating emissions standards and getting out of the Paris Climate Agreement are likely to be incredibly costly in the long run, because scientists are convinced that the window for protecting the planet is rapidly closing.

The stakes in regulation are twofold - whether you think it is government's job to help protect individuals and the planet from the consequences of our or others' actions, or whether we would rather pay for those consequences in the short term, or hope. The policy of the current administration is to save now and hope for the best.

You need the tools to improve your study skills.

As we have seen in this chapter, deregulation is a big issue for President Trump, but it is not without costs.

Foreign-policy mandarins are terrified that security alliances are being wrecked because most American elites believe that the Trump presidency is hurting their country. The rejection of climate change is deplored by scientists.

There is a striking exception. The people in charge of companies made their calculations about the Age of Trump. Bosses think that the value of tax cuts, deregulation and potential trade concessions from China outweighs the costs of weaker institutions andtrade wars. They are willing to play along with President Donald Trump's economic vision, in which firms are freed from the state and unfair foreign competition, and profits, investment and, eventually, wages, soar.

The financial fireworks on display in the first quarter of this year suggest that the vision is coming true. The earnings of listed firms increased by 22% compared with a year earlier. The investment surge is skewed towards tech giants, notfirms with factories. America Inc is being short-sighted when it comes to figuring out the full costs of Mr Trump.

The Republicans have sought to control the power of business. After the election, Mr Trump held summits in the Oval Office and at Trump Tower. After Mr Trump equivocations over white-supremacistprotests in Virginia last summer, bosses have tired of this kind ofpantomime, but they remain bullish. The Republican corporate-tax reform was passed in December. It cuts headline rates to average European levels. The annual saving is worth a tenth of the fiscal deficit.

It is in full swing. Banking rules were relaxed this week. The leaders of many agencies have been replaced. Firms say the change at the top means officials are more helpful. There is a lot of support for a muscular stance on trade with China. If China capitulated to American demands, it could boost the earnings of America Inc by 2%. The benefits for business of Mr Trump are clear: less tax and red tape, potential trade gains, and a 6-8% boost in earnings.

The problem is that companies are often poor at assessing risks, andCEOs' overall view of the environment is fallible. America was in a golden era when it came to profits, with an average of 31% higher than long-term levels. When the country's system of commerce is moving away from rules, openness andmultilateral treaties towards arbitrariness, bosses think they have entered a nirvana.

As the new world becomes clearer, so will its costs to business. First, take complexity. Although they want to get out of businesses' hair at home, the Trump team wants to regulate trade. Large numbers of firms have global supply chains so they have to respond to tariffs. More than 200 listed American firms have discussed the financial impact of tariffs on their calls with investors so far this month, despite the steel duties proposed in March. A mesh of distortions will build up over time.

A new bureaucracy is being created because trade is becoming more regulated. The Department of Commerce launched a probe on May 23rd. The country's "technological andindustrial leadership in areas related to national security" would be safeguarded by a bill in Congress. It could cost a lot to monitor this activity. America will face more duplicative regulation abroad as it abandons global cooperation. Europe has introduced new regimes for financial instruments.

The cost of re-regulating trade could surpass the benefits at home. unpredictability is a big cost of the Trump era. After 2022, the corporate-tax cuts will not be in effect. Although Canada and Mexico would prefer a permanent deal, America's negotiators want a five-year sunset clause. Bosses hope that the belligerence on trade is a ploy from "The Apprentice", and that stable agreements will emerge. Imagine if Mr Trump gets a bad deal with China or if Chinese firms stop buying American high-techcomponents as they become self-sufficient. The White House could rip the agreement up.

Mr Trump's urge to show off his power with acts of pure political discretion is one of the reasons for the growing unpredictability. He asked the postalservice to raise delivery prices for Amazon, his bete noire and the world's second-most valuable listed firm. He could easily be angry with other Silicon Valley firms because they control the flow of political information. He wants the fate of the Chinese telecom firm to be his own. Other countries are playing rougher. China's antitrust police are blockingQualcomm's $52 billion takeover of NXP, a rival Semiconductor firm, as abargaining chip. Lobbying explodes when policy becomes a rolling negotiation.

As America's expansion gets longer, these interventions could intensify. Mr Trump expects wages to rise, but 85% of firms in the S&P500 are forecast to expand margins by 2019, reflecting a control of costs. The politics of firing workers and cutting costs have become toxic and may compromise American business's flexibility during a downturn.

Republicans agree that tax cuts and deregulation can boost firms'competitiveness. There is little progress being made on other priorities, including repairing infrastructure, ensuring small firms are not crushed by monopolies, and reform of the education system. Most firms pride themselves on beinglevel-headed, but at some point that starts to bleed into complacency. One day, Americanbusiness will conclude that this was the moment when it booked all the benefits of the Trump era, while failing to account for the costs. A strategy that assumes revenues but not expenses is not very smart.

It has a good circulation in the US and the UK.

They fear deregulation at home is being replaced with a regulatory structure to handle increased regulation of trade and that only certain businesses are benefiting.

Only certain industries are benefiting and other priorities are falling behind.

In the private as well as the public spheres, bureaucracies are everywhere. The desire for democratic accountability often conflicts with the desire to take politics out of the bureaucracy, which creates a special problem for democratic politics. The spoils system of the 19th century was replaced by a civil service merit system.

The U.S. bureaucracy has grown from three cabinet departments to fifteen cabinet-level departments and hundreds of independent agencies. The expansion of the nation, politics of special economic and social groups, and the emergence of new problems are some of the reasons for the growth.

The culture of bureaucracy refers to how agencies operate. The bureaucratic culture increases employees' belief in the programs they administer, their commitment to the survival and growth of their agencies, and the tendency to rely on rules and procedures rather than goals.

The political branches have enacted laws and the bureaucracy should simply administer them. The agencies of the bureaucracy make government policy, and they play the roles of judge and jury in implementing it. Congress and the president can't perform many technical tasks due to the technical expertise of the agencies.

Agencies work hard for their survival. They try to establish strong support outside the agency, to avoid competition with other agencies, and to jealously guard their own policies. Presidential powers are not very effective in controlling the bureaucracy. Powerful iron triangles are formed by the affected clientele groups working in close cooperation with the agencies.

When compared with other countries, the U.S. bureaucracy is quite responsive and competent. Citizens can take advantage of opportunities to gain access to decision making.

From eighteen hundred to the nineteen twenties, bureaucratic spending was under two hundred and fifty million dollars per capita, with a small increase after the Civil War. After World War 2, spending increased to over ten trillion dollars per capita, with sharp increases just before the Great Depression.

A depiction of federal bureaucrats by race and gender.

Higher bureaucratic positions are usually filled by men, while lower positions are usually filled by women. 35 percent of senior executives are women. Women make up 48 percent of professional federal workers.

The majority of technical positions are filled by women. 67 percent of clerical positions are filled by women.

The majority of civil servants are white. 18.4 percent are African America, 8.6 percent are Hispanic or Latino, 5.8 percent are Asian, 1.6 percent are American Indian, and.5 percent are Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders.