Essay On The Bureaucracy

“The Logic of American Politics,” written by Samuel Kernell, Gary C. Jacobson, Thad Kousser, and Lynn Vavreck brings together the sequence of events that occur throughout our history in chapters six through nine. Chapter six, Congress, focuses on the development of Congress and how they came to hold so much power within the United States; with the creation of Congress came the Presidency. The Presidency, chapter 7, explain how the framework for President of the United States was given only enough power to control/respond to national emergencies, and under the President were bureaus that worked with him. Chapter 8, The Bureaucracy, was created by the frameworkers, but was never given a clear definition on how to organize this branch of government, just like the bureau's work alongside the President the Judiciary system works alongside Congress.

Throughout the rigmarole of political history of the United States of America, the growth of the “fourth branch of government”, the Bureaucracy, has been a prominent, controversial topic. Peter Woll, in his article “Constitutional Democracy and Bureaucratic Power”, and James Q. Wilson, in his article “The Rise of the Bureaucratic State”, discuss this developing administrative branch. The Constitution has no written mention of an “administrative branch”, and today’s Bureaucracy is often tedious, corrupt, and even undemocratic. But such a branch’s development and expansion is necessary in order to keep par with an evolving and changing society.

In his book, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies do and why they do it, James Q. Wilson’s main objective is to better define the behavior of governmental bureaucracy, believing traditional organizational and economic theory does not adequately explain their actions. Wilson believes that government agencies are doomed to be perceived as inefficient entities by the public. He gives examples of commonly held perceptions of bureaucracies and reveals how these are mostly misconceptions. He points to the environment of bureaucracy, where rules and procedures, dictate goals, along with context, constraints, values, and norms.

Another of these monumental changes would be the surrender of the control of power from the legislative branch to the executive branch. Over the twentieth century, this became an increasing reality as the focus shifted from Congress to the president (Cooper 2009, 388). While this development has many different advantages in the American government system, there are disadvantages as well, such as a decrease in stability (Cooper 2009, 379). The role of the president has become more important because of the changes that have led to the modern world (Cooper 2009, 388). This has occurred because of a number of reasons, such as “substantial increases in the responsibilities of the federal government, the stakes of politics, and the ease of communication and travel” (Cooper 2009, 388). Furthermore, in recent years, Congress has not worked hard in certain circumstances to protect their rights but have surrendered to the executive branch (Davidson, Oleszek, and Lee 2010, 498). It is

The Executive Branch, which consists of the President, Vice President, and the Cabinet has undergone a major expansion since 1789. The original Cabinet consisted of the Departments of State, War, Treasury, and the position of Attorney General, but has evolved into fifteen positions to meet the needs of the nation (Doc. A). With most new departments, one can pinpoint what sparked it’s development, such as the Department of the Navy being created during the XYZ Affair, a naval conflict between the U.S. and France. Similarly, the role of the

When the framers of the Constitution developed our government, they gave Congress the authority to create the departments necessary to carry out the day-to-day responsibilities of governing - the federal bureaucracy. The vast majority of the departments, agencies, and commissions that make up the federal bureaucracy today were created by Congress through legislative acts. Congress is unable to act in a bubble though, due to the nature of the system’s built-in checks and balances, Congress must first get the president’s “buy off” which is represented by his signature. Although Congress has the authority to create these agencies (with the president’s agreement

The federal bureaucracy is the group of government organizations that implement policy. The federal bureaucrats belong, for the most part, to the group of government agencies led by the president’s cabinet (the collection of appointed officials tasked with leading various federal government departments such as the State Department, Department of Homeland Security etc.) (Geer et al.). These department heads, known as cabinet secretaries, are appointed by each new president. The federal bureaucracy is responsible for writing regulations that implement the laws. In this, the federal bureaucracy’s importance cannot be understated. Congress passes laws, the president signs them, but it is the responsibility of the bureaucracy to actually implement them in the most effective, unburdening way.

The following is a description of the spoils system according to Sherman Hollar editor of the book Pivotal Presidents: Andrew Jackson, “This is the practice of discharging members of the defeated political party from public office and replacing them with members of the winning party.” Andrew Jackson believed that federal employees were not obligated to hold their job for life and he replaced many government job holders with people who supported him. The spoils system is corrupt and often leads to unworthy men and women holding jobs not based on their qualifications or ability to do the job but however on the party in powers needs. Andrew Jackson was charged of abusing the spoils system because he removed about 20% of federal employees during his reign as president. 920 of these federal employees lost their jobs within the first eighteen months of his presidency. He claimed replacing these highly qualified individuals was making the government more democratic, however in actuality he did not care about democracy but getting his way and making sure his supporters were rewarded and his party had ultimate power. The Civil Service Act was passed by Congress in 1883 to help curb the unfairness that is the spoils

“The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” This quote by Woodrow Wilson fits perfectly with the topics that will be discussed. The major theme of this paper is bureaucracy. Bureaucracy refers to an administrative system in which agencies staffed largely by non elected officials perform specific tasks in accordance with standard procedures. The work of the bureaucracy involves implementing laws and procedures. Does this sound familiar? That is because most bureaucrats work for the executive branch of the government. The executive branch is the one that enforces the laws. Some of these law enforcing jobs include mail clerk, police officer, fireman, and first responder. These jobs are essential to our lives as Americans and are greatly appreciated. This paper will expound on the history, usage, and the Cabinet

The fifth narrative “Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Critical Role of Street-Level Bureaucrats written by Michael Lipsky in 1980 whose ideas can be observed in the Reforming the Government School of though. The reading analyzed the significance of the actions of public workers to determine discretionary judgement when delivering services to the public. Government workers are the face of the government and the representation of the conditions of policy to the people. The problem that government workers face is the constant changed in policies and procedures that tend to directly affect the demands of citizens and services. Lipsky argued, “They are constantly torn by the demands of service recipients to improve effectiveness and responsiveness to improve effectiveness and responsiveness and by the demands of citizen groups to improve the efficacy and efficiency of government services” (p. 402). The function of government workers is usually questioned by citizens since they feel that any decision of street-level bureaucrats scan affect the stability of the people’s lives. In addition to the problems in relationships with clients, the increased in administrative cost for the government’s services was questioned and placed under scrutiny.

However, despite Max Weber’s theory that bureaucracies are like iron “iron cages” that are a efficient form of administration. Prior to modern government reform patronage, spoils, and bribery were just part of the political environment for Public Administrators. In today’s, modern government Public Administrators are hired based on the merit and technical qualifications that secure the individual can carry out the duties of the office. However, Public Administrators are forced to work in a hierarchical organization

Wood and Waterman’s 1991 article on the Bureaucracy attempted to change the view on Congressional and Executive control over the many different bureaucratic agencies. There have been many different views on who controls who and to what degree that control reaches, as well as different reasoning’s for the same view. Their question was what were the “causal mechanisms” that determined to what extent congress and the presidency controlled bureaucracies, and how effective were these mechanisms? After looking at years of data and research on the subject and seeing the differing opinions on both congressional control and presidential control they began to see that first and foremost, most studies were on one or the other. Very few looked at both Congress and the Executive and how they influenced the bureaucratic agencies. Another thing that they noticed was that there are a lot of limitations when it comes to analyzing the President, because by 1991, there had only been 41 Presidents. This makes finding data on the influence of the Presidency as a whole difficult, especially when all you have is data that could have more to do with individual Presidents than it does the influence of the position in general. It also, especially when you are looking for quantitative data, is restrictive to whatever time frame you want to look at for the data. Wood and Waterman noticed that almost all of the studies that were performed, the data they used was based on terms, which could be 2-4 years

The word “bureaucracy” has a negative connotation to many people. The fact is that our current system of government would not be able to survive without bureaucracies. The bureaucracy has become the “fourth branch” of the government, it has quasi-legislative and judicial powers and in it’s own field its authority is rarely challenged. The presence of these large, inefficient structures is necessary if the American people want to continue receiving the benefits that they expect.

Americans depend on government bureaucracies to accomplish most of what we expect from government, and we are oftentimes critical of a bureaucracy’s handling of its responsibilities. Bureaucracy is essential for carrying out the tasks of government. As government bureaucracies grew in the twentieth century, new management techniques sought to promote greater efficiency. The reorganization of the government to create the Department of Homeland Security and the Bush administration’s simultaneous push to contract out jobs to private employers raises the question as to whether the government or the private sector can best manage our national security. Ironically, the criticism of the bureaucracy may be a product

Abstract: The theory of bureaucracy was proposed and published by Marx Weber (1947). Although there are some studies on this perspective were discussed before him, those theories did not form as systematic theory. After Weber, the issue of bureaucracy becomes a hot topic in the field of social organization. Almost all well-known scholars such as Martin and Henri have published their views on it. Bureaucracy adapted as the traditional organizational model during industrial society, essentially, bureaucracy could exist rational. This essay firstly will review the principle of bureaucracy in organization based on organizational design perspective. Secondly, it will analyze the strengths and weakness of