Presidential control of the bureaucracy

1. Presidential Control of the
Bureaucracy
Bureaucratic Politics

2. Introduction
• The battle for control of the bureaucracy:
• Congress delegates its authority and wants to maintain control
(accountability).
• The president seeks to keep the bureaucracy under his direction in
order to fulfill the administration’s platform.
• The agency can use the Congress/President struggle to its advantage
(divided government):
• Sources of power
• Executive support
• Legislative support
• Two main questions we are concerned with in studying control of the
bureaucracy:
• What are the tools by which political actors seek to influence the
bureaucracy in a favorable manner?
• To what extent is political control successful given that agencies
seek autonomy and to extend their power and authority?

3. Principal-Agent Theory
• Delegation:
• In our discussion on administrative law, we mentioned that each branch has
delegated some of its authority to the bureaucracy.
• The Actors:
• The party that delegates the authority is referred to as the principal.
• Principal – an actor who enters a contractual relationship with another actor, an
agent.
• The bureaucracy actually has multiple principles in the president, Congress, and the
courts.
• The party to whom the authority is delegated is referred to as the
agent.
• Agent – the party that is entrusted to take actions that lead to outcomes
specified by the principal.
• Agencies
• Assumptions:
• Principals and agents are both motivated by self-interest.
• Principals and agents do not share the same incentives.
• Outcomes of agents may not satisfy principals.

4. Principal-Agent Theory
• Problems Faced by Principals:
• Adverse selection – the idea that principals cannot directly
observe the characteristics of agents but must rely on rough
indicators as well.
• Potential solution:
• Screening mechanisms – the means for getting agents to reveal their motivations
and skills before hiring them.
• Moral hazard – the idea that it is difficult to monitor and evaluate
agents, once selected, in their work environments.
• This difficulty allows bureaucrats to shirk their duties.
• Potential solutions:
• Institutional design – principals put agents in situations in which they find it in
their self-interest to work toward outcomes favored by principles.
• Oversight – activity where principals monitor the activities of agents in order to
ensure compliance with goals.
• Both of these problems can lead to:
• Agency loss – the behavior of agents leaves principals unable to achieve
their goals in an efficient manner or realize them at all.

5. Executive Control of the
Bureaucracy
• The president is the formal head of the bureaucracy.
• President seeks to influence both policy development and
policy implementation.
• The power or influence of the president varies depending on
the context in which he finds himself.
• Some are powerful (George W. Bush)
• Some are not (Jimmy Carter)
• The president is not an actor in the iron triangle, so president
must find other tools to control the bureaucracy.
• One problem is that the president must still rely on bureaucrats
for expertise, so the relationship of control is shaky.

6. Executive Tools of Control
Over the Bureaucracy
• Success of these tools is affected by:
• Legislative support
• Stage of the president’s term
• Nature of the issue
• Foreign Policy
• Domestic Policy
• Crisis situations
• Public support

7. Executive Tools of Control Over the
Bureaucracy: Personnel Controls
• Personnel controls – overseeing rules organizations, and
activities involved in filling administrative positions
throughout the executive branch.
• Appointment/Removal Power
• President appoints roughly 3,000 bureaucratic officials.
• 80% from the same party
• Cabinet Members
• Presidential influence: high
• Independent Agencies
• Presidential influence: high
• Independent Regulatory Boards and Commissions
• Presidential influence: lower

8. Executive Tools of Control Over the
Bureaucracy: Personnel Controls
• Politicization – systemic pressure on president’s encouraging them to
appoint loyalists and party activists, rather than technical specialists
who are politically neutral.
• Appoint people who will implement the policies in the manner you
want/ remove them if they don’t.
• Durant, Robert F. 1992. The Administrative Presidency Revisited:
Public Lands, the BLM, and the Reagan Revolution. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
• Lower Level Politicization
• Keep in mind that civil servants are not appointed which limits
presidential influence.
• Senior Executive Service (SES pool)
• Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
• President can assign managers to agencies as means for extending “reach”.

9. Executive Tools of Control Over the
Bureaucracy: Personnel Controls
• Limitations to personnel controls:
• Impossible to monitor so many people
• Bureaucratic resistance
• Heclo, Hugh. 1977. A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in
Washington. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute Press.
• Bureaucratic resistance – self-serving features of administrative agencies
which emphasizes gradualism, slowness, and political caution when dealing
with newly selected political leadership in the executive branch.
• Agency culture
• Going “native”
• Senate confirmation
• Empirical evidence:
• A great deal of empirical evidence suggests that presidents can have effective
control over the bureaucracy.
• Wood and Waterman 1991.

10. Executive Tools of Control Over the
Bureaucracy: Reorganization
• The power to reorganize the bureaucracy is delegated to the president by Congress.
• President presents reorganization plan to Congress where it is approved or disapproved.
• Example:
• Homeland Security Act of 2002
• Created the Department of Homeland Security
• Gave the president the authority to create a reorganization plan that would be submitted to Congress. (Section 1502)
• Merged 22 agencies and 170,000 employees
• Reorganization includes:
• Addition or subtraction of staff positions (RIF – reductions in force) or agencies.
• Consolidation
• Streamlining
• Restructuring of organizational arrangements
• Purpose:
• Helps achieve policy goals.
• Increased economy, efficiency, and effectiveness
• Control:
• Threat of job loss
• Threat of dissolving the agency
• Reorganization brings agencies in line w/president’s goals.
• Limitations:
• Not a tool that can be used over and over or it will seem illegitimate.

11. Executive Tools of Control Over
the Bureaucracy: Centralization
• Centralization – historical trend of presidents to try to strengthen direct control of
agencies, usually at the expense of independent agencies.
• Coordinated control
• Means the president wants to centralize authority over the bureaucracy.
• The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
• Agencies must submit proposed rules to the OMB for approval before they can seek to
implement those rules.
• Executive orders – formal statements by the president with which executive agencies are
required to comply.
• Numbering scheme
• Executive order 12291 (2/17/81)
• All agencies are required to conduct cost-benefit analyses of any new rules.
• No rule may be promulgated if the total costs outweigh the total benefits.
• Executive order 12498 (1/4/1985)
• All agencies must submit their cost-benefit analyses to the OMB for review.
• OMB must examine agency analysis and provide a report to the agency and the president, noting objections
• All agencies must respond to OMB objections either by withdrawing or amending the proposed rule, or by
formally contesting the OMB.
• OMB can then bring all rules into line with presidential goals and agenda.
• Limits:
• Congress may provide exceptions to these executive orders in the agency’s guiding statute or
under limited exceptions.

12. Executive Tools of Control Over the
Bureaucracy: Other Controls
• Information resources
• The presidential bureaucracy, which we discussed at
the beginning of class, helps the president to close the
knowledge gap.
• Executive Office of the President (EOP)
• Budget Controls
• Next time!