Bureaucracy

BUREAUCRACY

BUREAUCRACY. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the federal bureaucracy consisted of 2.8 million people; almost 19 million Americans work for governments of some type, from federal to local units. In a famous lecture given in 1918, the great sociologist Max Weber predicted that the twentieth century would be an era in which governments would be dominated by professional politicians and professional bureaucrats. In most advanced industrialized democracies, Weber's prediction was born out fully. In the United States, however, the bureaucracy has not attained the degree of power or influence that Weber anticipated. The reasons for this relate to the special history of the bureaucracy in the United States.

Most advanced, industrialized democracies developed a professional, permanent bureaucracy around the middle of the nineteenth century. European reformers argued that the expanding role of government in a more urbanized and industrialized society required professional bureaucrats to make government work. Bureaucracies should consist, particularly at their highest levels, of highly educated and trained people organized rationally, not of people who were selected on the basis of whom they knew or had supported in the previous election. Such arguments were made forcefully in the United States as well, particularly later in the nineteenth century by Progressive reformers. However, the shift from patronage to a professionalized, merit-based bureaucracy ran into problems in the United States. First, the notion that making government work required special skills, talents, or education had been rejected by the Jacksonians as incompatible with American values of equality and participation. In the Federalist era, the United States had taken some limited steps along the road toward the creation of a bureaucracy composed of socially superior and educated men. Andrew Jackson reversed these trends, firmly establishing the notion that any (white) man could run government. Second, government jobs were crucial to the workings of American political parties until well into the twentieth century; "to the victor the spoils" was a key principle of party organization. Supporters expected to be rewarded with, among other things, government jobs if their party won. Parties were naturally unwilling to hand over as crucial an element in securing power as government jobs to a merit-based bureaucracy.

In spite of these problems, reformers did ultimately secure the creation of a merit-based system. The assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disappointed job seeker also highlighted the difficulties of operating a patronage system. The triumph of the Progressive reformers seemed to be completed by the New Deal, which resulted in a vast expansion in the number of government agencies and jobs. The practical problems of staffing the much-expanded government machine with political appointees, and the scale of political power that such vast opportunities for patronage could produce, were compelling reasons for completing the transition to a bureaucracy recruited and promoted on the basis of merit. From the New Deal onward, the majority of government jobs were awarded on the basis of merit, not patronage.

Yet the special factors inhibiting the growth of a professional bureaucracy in the United States insured that the reformers' triumph was never total. American government remained distinctive compared with other advanced industrialized democracies in retaining a thick layer of political appointees at the top of government departments. For much of the twentieth century, it seemed as though this layer of political appointees would gradually diminish in the face of practical problems and pressures from reformers. However, in the last few decades of the twentieth century, the number of political appointees began to increase again. In contrast to the situation in other advanced, industrialized democracies, the permanent bureaucracy was largely excluded from participation in policy making and was relegated to mere policy implementation.

Although American political parties no longer depended on patronage for their support as heavily as in the past, several trends emerged that discouraged reliance on the permanent bureaucracy. First, presidents, particularly Republican presidents, believed that the bureaucracy was ideologically predisposed against them and their policies. There is evidence that this belief had some empirical foundations in the Nixon era, though by the end of the twentieth century, bureaucrats had become noticeably more conservative and less Democratic in their personal politics. Second, all presidents found that the vast federal bureaucracy had become a "fourth branch of government" that was difficult to control. The bureaucracy had its own opinions on what constituted good policy and its own political alliances with interest groups and Congressional committees. Third, new styles of thinking, derived from microeconomics, emerged after World War II. In these "rational choice" perspectives, bureaucrats were not the selfless servants of the public good that Progressive reformers had intended but rather selfish maximizers of the size of their staffs and budgets. Writers in this school, such as William Niskanen, were particularly influential with Republican politicians. It followed that the power of bureaucrats should be reduced. Wherever possible, government work should be privatized or "contracted out" to privately owned firms. Senior bureaucrats should be limited in the role they played in developing policy and subordinated to political appointees whose loyalty to the administration was likely to be greater. However, it was a Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, who pushed through legislation that addressed these concerns by moving the most senior bureaucrats into a Senior Executive Service. With this, the president had far more control in the ability to reassign officials than over the rest of the civil service. Carter's reforms were invaluable in helping President Reagan impose radically conservative perspectives on the bureaucracy.

The distinctive history of the bureaucracy in the United States has had both advantages and disadvantages. Advantages have included the facilitated participation in government by large numbers of people from business, academic life, and other backgrounds who have served as political appointees in Washington. Political appointees have brought with them fresh perspectives and attitudes that a permanent bureaucracy may not provide. Most obvious among the system's disadvantages is the continued appointment of people to government service whose qualifications only include the payment of the large sums of money or services to the victorious presidential candidate. Additional disadvantages include the length of time it takes to appoint and secure Senate approval for the thousands of political appointees who arrive with a new administration, which complicates the smooth running of government. Although bureaucracies can be self-interested and slow to change, they can also provide politicians with much-needed advice and perspectives; good governance may result from the effective combination of the perspectives of bureaucrats and politicians.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aberbach, Joel D., and Bert A. Rockman. In the Web of Politics. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001.

Light, Paul C. Thickening Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995.

Skowronek, Stephen. Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1876–1922. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Graham K. Wilson

See also Civil Service ; Jacksonian Democracy ; New Deal .