The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy
1991/09/01 by B. Dan Wood, Richard W. Waterman · 23 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Public Policy and Administration Research #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Fiscal Policies and Political Economy
paper · doi:10.2307/1963851
Abstract
A new paradigm of political-bureaucratic relations emerged through the 1980s holding that U.S. democratic institutions continuously shape nonelective public bureaucracies. Several empirical studies support the paradigm with evidence suggestive of political manipulation but none reveals the scope or specific mechanisms of political control. We explore the dynamics of political control of the bureaucracy explicitly to determine the scope and mechanisms. We examine output time series from seven different public bureaucracies for responsiveness to political tools applied in the late Carter and early Reagan administrations. We find responsiveness in all seven cases. The evidence also shows that political appointments—a shared power of the president and Congress—is the most important instrument of political control; changing budgets, legislation, congressional signals, and administrative reorganizations are less important. These findings confirm intuitive assertions by institutional scholars and suggest a method of “policy monitoring” that could enhance future democratic control of the bureaucracy.
Cited by
- Technocrat or partisan cabinet ministers: Does it make a difference? Evidence from an endorsement experiment with the bureaucracy
- Striped Pants versus Fat Cats: Ambassadorial Performance of Career Diplomats and Political Appointees
- Politics, Bureaucracy, and Farm Credit
- Noncompliance in Environmental Reporting: Are Violators Ignorant, or Evasive, of the Law?
- What Makes an Agency Independent?
- Delivering on Environmental Justice? U.S. State Implementation of the Justice40 Initiative
- Regularized Campaigns as a New Institution for Effective Governance
- Bureaucratic Responsiveness to the News Media: Comparing the Influence of The New York Times and Network Television News Coverage on US Foreign Aid Allocations
- Do the Media Influence Foreign Aid Because or in Spite of the Bureaucracy? A Case Study of Belgian Aid Determinants
- Agents or Stewards: Using Theory to Understand the Government-Nonprofit Social Service Contracting Relationship
- Principal-Agent Models: An Expansion?
- Organizational Reputation, the Content of Public Allegations, and Regulatory Communication
- Democratic backsliding and the challenges for public administration scholarship
- Protecting the Citadel of Democracy: A Political and Administrative Response
- Federal employee unionization and presidential control of the bureaucracy: Estimating and explaining ideological change in executive agencies
- Public accountability and auditing: Why and when do state auditors conduct broad audits?
- How do public agencies respond to budgetary control? A theory of strategic task portfolios in public administration
- Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework
- Bureaucracies in Historical Political Economy
- Using the Multiple Streams Framework to Connect Policy Adoption to Implementation
- POLITICAL PRESSURES, ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY, AND ATTENTION TO TASKS: ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PRE‐CRISIS FINANCIAL REGULATION
- Barriers to the digital transformation of infrastructure sectors. [europepmc]
- Trumping the Centers for Disease Control: A Case Comparison of the CDC's Response to COVID-19, H1N1, and Ebola. [europepmc]
Related