Bureaucracy’s Masters and Minions. Eleanor L. Schiff

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СКАЧАТЬ constitutional role in overseeing and managing the bureaucracy. The scholarly literature offers two competing theories asserting supremacy from the Congress or the presidency over the bureaucracy. A Congress-centered approach, advanced by the congressional dominance theory assumes that a member of Congress’s reelection motivation is the overriding principal behind their efforts to influence the bureaucracy to serve constituent interests (Mayhew 1974; Moe 1987; Fiorina 1989). This approach cites evidence that the legislature as a whole exerts its policy preferences in agency decision-making through three primary means. First, they direct bureaucratic actions through specific language in statute (Huber and Shipan 2002) that can either constrain or enable bureaucratic discretion depending on the specificity of the law’s directives. This is ex-ante statutory control (Ringquist et al. 2003), whereby bureaucratic action is controlled before policy implementation from the bureaucrats begins. The congressional dominance theory advances the idea that the legislature is the primary principal directing bureaucratic actions through statutory language allowing varying amount of discretion (Huber and Shipan 2002). Congress then monitors adherence to statutory delegation and program implementation through oversight hearings.

      Second, the Congress can reprimand bureaucratic agencies after some malfeasance has occurred though ex-post committee oversight hearings (Weingast and Moran 1983). In this scenario, a third party such as a citizen or an interest group will pull the proverbial “fire alarm” and alert members when an infraction has occurred (McCubbins and Schwartz 1984). Once alerted, Congress can take steps to remedy the situation and reward or punish agencies as needed. This is an efficient and effective form of oversight, but there is selective sampling just on what affects a third party. Finally, Congress and the president jointly share the power of budgeting. Every year, annual appropriations for agencies throughout the government are made and approved by both Congress and the president. Agencies need the Congress to continue approving and funding their programs, providing them a keen incentive to remain attentive to congressional wishes (Fiorina 1989; Fiorina 1977). Budgets are an important tool the Congress can use to reward or sanction agencies (Moe 1987), and the Congress grants agencies much of the power they enjoy through statute (Kennedy 2014). The Congress, however, is the final actor in the budgeting process (Wildavsky 1984) since they respond to the president’s budget proposals.

      

      Presidential Sovereignty

      Congressional primacy, however, is contested by scholars who assert that the president is better able to manifest his preferences on the bureaucracy. The presidential sovereignty thesis also resides in three mechanisms: appointment power (Moe 1994; Wood and Waterman 1991), (re)organization (Meier 1980), and budgeting (Wood 1988). The president, as the chief executive, has the ability to shape the bureaucratic leadership, through patronage appointments, most of whom the Congress does not approve. Political appointees ensure that presidential priorities are implemented and that department policy is congruent with his ideology. Every single cabinet secretary is a political appointee along with the top leadership at almost every agency. Political appointees are a powerful tool in the presidential arsenal to shape the agenda of agencies, determine their policy priorities (Lewis 2008; Wood 1988; Wood 1991), and interpret ambiguous congressional language in statute so as to ensure that it conforms to the president’s philosophy (Lewis 2009). The spoils system has not been completely vanquished from the modern bureaucracy.

      Further, the president has the ability to reorganize the bureaucracy to streamline the reporting structure, shape how agencies are run, and implement pet programs. For instance, President Kennedy’s creation of the Peace Corps program initially without congressional consent exemplifies the institutional power the president has to shape policy direction. President Kennedy created the Peace Corps via Executive Order 10924 in 1961. In it he established an agency of the Peace Corps within the Department of State, to be funded by the Department of State. The purpose of the Peace Corps was “training and service abroad of men and women of the United States in a new program of assistance to nations and areas of the world.” (Executive Order 10924, 1961). Though programs such as the Marshall Plan and other national assistance programs had been established at the end of World War II, Kennedy looked to establish a volunteer organization to help economically disadvantaged countries and bypassed Congress with its creation. As William Howell details: “For several years prior, Congress had considered, and rejected, the idea of creating an agency that would send volunteers abroad to perform public works. . . . Democrats refused to put the weight of their party behind the proposal to ensure its passage” (Howell 2005). With Kennedy unilaterally creating the Peace Corps in 1961 and then redeploying contingency accounts within the Department of State to fund it during its first year, he effectively reorganized part of the State Department to fund a program important to him. Basically, Kennedy grew tired of waiting for Congress to authorize and appropriate funds for a new program he wanted to create. By issuing an executive order and establishing it outright, he created a new agency and then, strategically, placed Congress in a very uncomfortable position of cutting hundreds of jobs and halting the spread of good-will from volunteer Americans across the developing world. Even though many members of Congress were generally opposed to its creation since it served as a vehicle to dodge the draft, with the program effectively running, through Kennedy’s unilateral action it was a fait accompli and Congress formally approved the program in 1962.

      Along with appointment power and reorganization, budgeting is a shared tool between the president and Congress. They jointly must agree on funding levels for agencies annually, and budgeting is “the battleground upon which many of the most significant policy debates [between Congress and the president] are fought” (Canes-Wrote, Howell, and Lewis 2008, pg. 8). Congress effectively delegated budgeting power to the presidency in the Budget Reorganization Act of 1921. Due to the collective action issues facing Congress, it was easier for one person, the executive, to propose a blueprint budget for agencies for the Congress then to consider. The delegation, therefore, gives the president first-mover advantage with regards to agency budgeting (Ragsdale and Theis 1997), thus imprinting his preferences prior to congressional action. Even though Congress is the final decision-maker in budgeting, they are largely operating in an informational disadvantage and are reacting to what the president has proposed (Moe 1987).

      External Actors

      While the president and the Congress are the only two principals that have specific constitutionally enshrined oversight of the bureaucracy, there are other actors in the network that influence bureaucratic decision-making (Hill 1991). The courts have less direct control on bureaucratic daily business since they only have veto power and not agenda-setting power (Spriggs 1996; Canon and Giles 1972). Further, in a departure from a direct principal-agent framework, extra-governmental organizations’ influence, such as interest groups, are relationship based and can form an interdependent information exchange between the regulated and the regulators (Yackee and Yackee 2006; Lowery and Brasher 2004). The public, in the form of public opinion, also influences policy change across government and have an interest in having their preferences reflected in the bureaucracy (Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson 1995, 2002). While the literature has progressed in recognizing that hierarchical control models must account for multiple principals (Moe 1984), there is no integrated theory predicting when each principal is important and under what conditions which particular principals can exert more or less control to have their preferences reflected in bureaucratic policy.

      

      Bureaucratic Autonomy

      At its core, principal-agent theory is primarily concerned with studying the ubiquitous problem of delegation: How much discretion does a principal delegate to an agent and what are the consequences of the delegation for getting work accomplished, or policy implemented in a manner that is congruent with the principal’s wishes (Kiewiet and McCubbins 1988). In disentangling whether the Congress or the president has more influence over bureaucratic activity, some agencies are created to have more independent policy-making authority outside of the Cabinet (Kollman 2017). Typically, they are governed by a board that serves staggered terms so that different presidents, often of different parties, can make appointments. The Federal Communications Commission СКАЧАТЬ