The New Case for Bureaucracy

Charles T. Goodsell

• Publisher: CQ Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781483322384
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Charles Goodsell has long taken the position that U.S. bureaucracy is neither a generalized failure nor sinkhole of waste as mythologized by anti-government ideologues. Rather, it is one of the most effective and innovate sets of administrative institutions of any government in the world today. Indispensable to our democracy, it keeps government reliable and dependable to the citizens it serves. However, The New Case for Bureaucracy goes beyond empirically verifying its quality. Now an extended essay, written in a conversational tone, Goodsell expects readers to form their own judgments. At a time when Congress is locked in partisan and factional deadlock, he argues for the increased importance of bureaucrats and discusses how federal agencies must battle to keep alive in terms of resources and be strong enough to retain the integrity of their missions. While bureaucracy is not a substitute for policymaking by elected officials, it keeps the machinery of government running smoothly to meet the ever changing needs of the country, despite the challenges of federal sequester and shutdown.

Chapter 1 What, Defend Bureaucracy?

Offhand, can you think of a more dumb idea than to defend bureaucracy? One of the great demons of our times?

Let me begin by assuring you I am not using the word in its common meaning of government offices so bound in red tape they can't help anyone. Or of arrogant bureaucrats who think they have the power to push people around as they see fit.

In this book we transcend such stereotypes and think concretely and broadly about the agencies of administration that do the work of government in this huge country. In it you will find that I contend the general quality and effectiveness of these departments and bureaus to be greater than most believe. Some are outstanding and stand as world exemplars in their field. This is why I make a substantive case for bureaucracy as it exists in this country.

It is entirely understandable if you are wary of my conclusion. Americans are known for their individualism and love of personal freedom and hence tend to be suspicious of big and powerful institutions. They benefit from the fruits of a market economy and frown on paying a good chunk of the fruits of their labor to a public treasury. Business executives and investors that make the economy productive dislike being constrained by government regulation. Hence this book is practically contrary to the American way! Actually, my pride of country is deep and made deeper for the relative competence and dedication I see in the civil servants who make our democracy work on a day-to-day basis.

I have a big job ahead of me as I present my case. I do not lecture at you as a know-it-all authority but as someone who wants to stimulate your own thinking. I hope you enjoy this intellectual journey we take together; contact me at [email protected] if you wish to discuss a point.

Some Preliminaries

First we need to attend to some preliminaries. The term “bureaucracy” is derived from the Old French word bureau, initially referring to a heavy wool cloth that covered tables. Later on, bureau meant the table itself and then the desks at which people work in offices. Hence literally bureaucracy means “desk rule” or governance by those who work at desks. ¹

Max Weber's Model. The famous German sociologist Max Weber, writing in the context of early twentieth-century Prussia, theorized that bureaucracy is the form of organization that inevitably emerges when money-based societies take on complex tasks. The reason is that it is capable of unparalleled precision, speed, continuity, and technically optimal capabilities for advanced collective action. These assets are achieved, he said, because of the combined effects of several organizational features. Known today as the Weberian model of bureaucracy, these are: (1) fixed duties for officials that apply within a set jurisdiction, (2) a graded system of hierarchical authority from highest level to lowest; (3) the use of formal rules to guide the carrying out of duties; (4) the maintenance of written files over time; and (5) employees who are full-time, salaried, trained, tenured, and work at an office away from home. However, Weber warned, in addition to being technically superior, the tight efficiency of bureaucracy enables it to acquire political power. Hence a regime's top leadership is always in danger of becoming overwhelmed by the concentrated information, resources, and skills of its bureaucracy. Do you think this could be a danger in America? ²

Since being translated into English in the 1940s, Weber's work has had a pervasive influence in public administration thought. At first scholars ambivalently admired his comprehensive compilation of administrative traits on the one hand, but took seriously his warnings about bureaucracy's threat to democracy on the other. By the 1960s academic critique of the model extended to the point of outright condemnation of the model's stress on hierarchy, rules, and expertise as inviting top-down dominance of the institution as well as organizational inflexibility. A few decades later this critique became the springboard for an antithesis theory of bureaucracy whereby nonhierarchical processes, multipoint collaboration, and minimization of the public-private distinction were championed. Still later a “governance without government” thesis emerged that repudiated the centrality of stand-alone bureaucracies in general as the heart of public administration in favor of a networked series of multiple, scattered, public and private actors acting jointly. ³

These ideas that detract from Weber's model are attractive in many ways. They emphasize the importance of decentralization, partnerships, flexibility, decision influence upward as well as sideways, and participation by citizens in administration. Yet at the same time the classic attributes of precision, speed, and expertise are still needed in this era of electronic communication, nonstate wars, and global markets. Furthermore the cultural coherence and endurance of the stand-alone institution is still important as a basis of achieving pride, dedication, and self-identity in a workplace. From the standpoint of responsible and fiscally sound administration, a sharp focal point of official accountability is also indispensable. Perhaps you differ, but I believe the individual bureaucracy is here to stay as a keystone for a compatible bureaucracy-democracy fit; in a country like ours, governance must simultaneously involve desks, networks, and ballot boxes.

US Bureaucracy: An Overview. Bureaucracy has the reputation of being big and everywhere. Yes, from the financial standpoint, it looms large. The federal government's annual outlays are equivalent to a slice of the Gross National Product between 18 and 25 percent of the whole, depending on the state of the economy. State and local government expenditures augment federal outlays by approximately 40 percent, leading to total annual public sector spending in excess of $6 trillion at this writing. A gross expenditure figure overstates the cost of the bureaucracy itself, however; most public spending goes not to public payrolls and operating budgets but to entitlements to individuals, allotments to subsidized industries, payments to government contractors, and to a lesser degree grants and contracts with nonprofit service providers. ⁴

A more direct measure of bureaucracy's magnitude is the number of bureaucrats employed. Table 1.1 provides total-employee numbers for each level of government in three years. The grand total for 2011 of roughly 22 million bureaucrats is about 12 percent of the economy's employed workforce. You can see big differences in magnitude among the three levels of government; clearly, most of American bureaucracy is not at the national level but in the states and localities, especially the latter. Variations over the three years are steady in overall scale, although it is notable that some 800,000 bureaucrats were added to the totals during the George Bush presidency and about 350,000 were lost to them in Obama's first term. Hence the overall amount of American bureaucracy is by no means determined alone by the ideology of the party that elects the president, as one might anticipate.

Another surprise, at least to me, is how when one disaggregates public employment figures into the number of workers per workplace, the image of bureaucracy as a mammoth phenomenon begins to dissipate. This is especially true for offices that deal directly with the public. A few years ago I calculated the average size of 40,671 postal and other federal offices around the country and found that 69 percent had staffs of ten or less and 53 percent had five or less. Similarly, 55 percent of Social Security field offices employed fewer than twenty people. For 53 percent of the nation's 1,872 local welfare departments, essentially the same situation obtained. Budget cuts during the recent recession and the federal sequester of 2012–2013 have driven these workplace numbers even lower. ⁵

Table 1.1

Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2012, p. 300. Bureau of the Census website, “Government Employment & Payroll.” Accessed July 19, 2013.

Disaggregating bureaucracy is necessary to understanding it from the standpoint of the type of organization as well. United States public administration is remarkably varied and pluralistic, just like the country itself. The classic bureau is common but by no means the only type. From the standpoint of continuous, empowered effort, however, it has many advantages, which is probably why it is pervasive (as Weber argued). These features include a legislative statute or local government charter that authorizes pursuance of identified goals; annual appropriations to enable the continuation of this work over time; a hierarchical organization that makes possible focused accountability and unified internal management; and staffing by a nonpartisan body of specialized civil servants.

The potential effectiveness of this workhorse of bureaucracy is implied by efforts of legislatures to create opposing but similar organizational forms as a counter to it. Placement of the bureau in an overhead structure like the Department of Homeland Security or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration augments political control by the elected chief executive. Establishment of nonexecutive bureaus like state legislative staff offices or a Government Accountability Office augments political control by elected representatives. Agencies like an Office of Director of National Intelligence provides operational coordination, while an Office of Management and Budget enables managerial supervision.

Other types of organizational entity do not augment control but affect capabilities in other ways. Government enterprises such as the US Postal Service make the activity dependent on its own earnings without the assurance of annual appropriations. Independent regulatory commissions replace unified top leadership with a bipartisan board whose members serve rotating terms. Public organizations financed by multiple governments, such as regional planning commissions, facilitate coordination across jurisdictions. Inspectors general and the Postal Inspection Service constitute insider watchdogs to look for wrongdoing. A paramilitary body of uniformed professionals like the US Public Health Service Commissioned Officer Corps transcends agency jurisdictions. So, my reader, variety is the spice of public administration as well as other aspects of life.

Downstairs or Upstairs? A major theme in the Masterpiece Theater television dramas “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” is how the servants on the lower level of the Edwardian English mansion have a distinctly inferior station in life from the aristocratic family upstairs. Nonetheless the butlers, valets, cooks, and maids working down there become inextricably involved in the lives of family members upstairs, albeit with the class distinction always preserved. Curiously enough, such spatial verticality was the same in the nation's early state capitols, where legislative chambers were on the second floor, the governor's office on the ground floor, and bureaucratic offices in the basement. ⁶

Life in the Edwardian mansion has metaphoric possibilities for public administration. Those of us who teach and write in the field frequently refer to bureaucrats as “public servants.” While our use of the term is based not on perceived inferiority but on a desire to grant respect, the upstairs-downstairs distinction can be compared to the field's classic distinction between politics and administration. Originally drawn to emphasize the need to keep administration nonpartisan, this “dichotomy” can, in a larger sense, embrace the basic point that in a democracy, elected officials do need to exercise ultimate authority over administrative agencies. A parallel dyad found in political science is between making public policy versus implementing it, and in organizational economics between the principals who give instructions and the agents who do or do not obey them.

These ma...