KWARA STATE POLYTECHNIC, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION, INSTITUTE OF FINANCE AND MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT QUESTION

Importance of government bureaucracy

SUBMITTED BY
IBRAHIM SADIAT OMOLOLA
HND/12/PA/FT/105
THE BUREAUCRACY'S ROLE IN GOVERNMENT

The primary purpose of the bureaucracy is to administer the laws and policies passed by Congress
and the president by establishing programs, promulgating rules and regulations, and creating
infrastructures to deliver benefits in accordance with the language and intent of the enabling legislation.
Sometimes, however, bureaucracies make policy as well. This occurs in two ways.

INTRODUCTION

Once Congress, the president, or the Supreme Court makes a policy decision, it is most likely that bureaucrats must
step in to implement those decisions. Since bureaucrats are typically less visible and are not elected to their positions, their
actions and power are often subjects of considerable debate.

The classic conception of bureaucracy was advanced by the German sociologist Max Weber, who stressed that the
bureaucracy was a "rational" way for a modern society to conduct its business. To Weber, a bureaucracy depends upon certain
elements, including a hierarchical authority structure, task specialization, and extensive rules, which allow similar cases to be
handled in similar ways.

THE BUREAUCRATS

Bureaucrats are typically much less visible than the president or members of Congress. Bureaucrat baiting is a popular
American pastime, and spawns plenty of myths. The following are some of the most prevalent myths about bureaucracy and
bureaucrats: Americans dislike bureaucrats, bureaucracies are growing bigger each year, most federal bureaucrats work in
Washington, D.C., and bureaucracies are ineffective, inefficient, and always mired in red tape.

There are approximately 4.2 million civilian and military federal bureaucrats, 18.7 million state and local public
employees. Although Congress has ordered federal agencies to make special efforts to recruit and promote previously
disadvantaged groups, women and nonwhites are still clustered in the lower ranks. As a whole, however, the permanent
bureaucracy is more broadly representative of the American people than legislators, judges, or presidential appointees in the
executive branch.

Until approximately 100 years ago, a person got a job with the government through the patronage system (a hiring
and promotion system based on knowing the right people). Under this "spoils system," nineteenth-century presidents staffed
the government with their friends and allies. Today, most federal agencies are covered by some sort of civil service system. The
rationale for all civil service systems rests on the merit principle and the desire to create a nonpartisan government service. The
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is in charge of hiring for most agencies of the federal government.

After serving a probationary period, civil servants are protected. It is difficult to fire a civil service employee after the
probationary period: an employee can appeal his or her dismissal, which can consume weeks, months, or even years. Ensuring a
nonpartisan civil service requires that workers have protection from dismissals that are politically motivated. At the very top of
the civil service system are about 9,000 members of the Senior Executive Service. These executives earn high salaries and
may be moved from one agency to another as leadership needs change.

The other route to federal jobs involves recruiting from the plum book, which lists top federal jobs available for direct
presidential appointment (often with Senate confirmation). Every incoming president launches a nationwide talent search to fill
these positions (approximately 400 of them). Most will be "in-and-outers" who stay for a while and leave; they soon learn that
senior civil servants know more, have been there longer, and will outlast them.

HOW BUREAUCRACIES ARE ORGANIZED

In general, there are four types of bureaucracies: cabinet departments, regulatory agencies, government corporations, and
independent executive agencies. Each of the fifteen cabinet departments is headed by a secretary (except the Department of
Justice, which is headed by the attorney general); all are chosen by the president and approved by the Senate. Beneath the
secretary are undersecretaries, deputy undersecretaries, and assistant secretaries. Each department manages specific policy
areas, and each has its own budget and staff.

Each of the independent regulatory agencies has responsibility for some sector of the economy. Regulatory agencies make
and enforce rules designed to protect the public interest; they also judge disputes over those rules.

Government corporations provide a service that could be handled by the private sector. They typically charge for their
services, though often at cheaper rates than the consumer would pay a private sector producer.

The independent executive agencies are not part of the cabinet departments and generally do not have regulatory functions.
They usually perform specialized functions.

BUREAUCRACIES AS IMPLEMENTORS

As policymakers, bureaucrats play three key roles: they are policy implementors; they administer public policy; and they are
regulators. Policy implementation occurs when the bureaucracy carries out decisions of Congress, the president, and even the
courts. Public policies are rarely self-executing: bureaucrats translate legislative policy goals into programs.

Policy implementation does not always work well, and bureaucrats usually take the blame when it does not. Reasons why
implementation may break down include faulty program design, lack of clarity in the laws bureaucrats administer, lack of
resources, the following of standard operating procedures, administrative discretion, and dispersal of policy responsibility
among several units of the bureaucracy (i.e., fragmentation).

Administrative discretion is the authority of administrative actors to select among various responses to a given problem.
Discretion is greatest when rules do not fit a case; but even in agencies with elaborate rules and regulations-especially when
more than one rule fits-there is still room for discretion. Michael Lipsky coined the phrase street-level bureaucrats to refer to
those bureaucrats who are in constant contact with the public and have considerable discretion (including police officers,
welfare workers, and lower court judges).
Implementation can be effective if goals are clear and the means to achieve the goals are unambiguous. The Voting Rights Act
of 1965 illustrates a program that was successfully implemented because its goal was clear: to register African Americans to
vote in southern counties where their voting rights had been denied for years. The means to achieve the goals were also clear:
the act singled out six states in the Deep South in which the number of African American registered voters was minuscule. The
Justice Department was ordered to send federal registrars to each county in those states to register qualified voters.
Implementation of this act helped bring the vote to some 300,000 African Americans in less than a year.

BUREAUCRACIES AS REGULATORS

Government regulation is the use of governmental authority to control or change some practice in the private sector. This is the
most controversial role of the bureaucracies, yet Congress gives them broad mandates to regulate activates as diverse as interest
rates, the location of nuclear power plants, and food additives.

Government regulation of the American economy and society has grown in recent decades. The budgets of regulatory agencies,
their level of employment, and the number of rules they issue are all increasing. Opponents of government regulation contend
that the rapid increase in the number and scope of environmental regulations during the past two decades has stifled economic
growth. Supporters of government regulation argue that such regulations are essential to protect the nation's air, land, and water
(and the people who use it).

The idea behind deregulation, the lifting of government restrictions on business, industry, and professional activities is, that the
number and complexity of regulatory policies have made regulation too complicated and burdensome. To critics, the problem
with regulation is that it raises prices, distorts market forces, and worst of all it does not work. Not everyone, however, believes
that deregulation is in the nation's best interest. Many regulations have proved beneficial to Americans. As a result of
government regulations, we breathe cleaner air, we have lower levels of lead in our blood, miners are safer at work, seacoasts
have been preserved, and children are more likely to survive infancy.

UNDERSTANDING BUREAUCRACIES

In democratic theory, popular control of government depends on elections, but we could not possibly elect
the 4.7 million federal civilian and military employees (or even the few thousand top men and women).
However, the fact that voters do not elect civil servants does not mean that bureaucracies cannot respond
to and represent the public's interests. Much depends on whether bureaucracies are effectively controlled
by the policymakers that citizens do elect-the president and Congress..

The federal bureaucracy has not grown over the past two generations; in fact, the bureaucracy has shrunk in size relative to the
population it serves. Originally, the federal bureaucracy had a modest role; but as the economy and the society of the United
States changed, additional demands were made on government. Considering the more active role the bureaucracy is expected to
play in dealing with social and economic problems, a good case can be made that the bureaucracy is actually too small for many
of the tasks currently assigned to it (such as the control of illicit drugs or the protection of the environment).