The Bureaucracy In The Policy Process

Categories: Policy

Essay, Pages 10 (2431 words)

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Discus the role of the bureaucracy in the policy process. Using relevant literature, Compare and contrast bureaucratic authority in the “spoils system” and “meritocratic bureaucracy.

The hierarchical structured bureaucracy is a well-organized system that is efficient and rational when it comes to influencing public policy. Those involved include; legislative, executive, administrative, and judiciary actors. There is a process in managing a bureaucracy that include; personnel stability, by keeping qualified bureaucrats in the government organizations for an extended period of time; organization, with separating the bureaucrats by their functioning specialties and allowing the hierarchy to play a role with the high officials supervising the lower level officials; and maintaining a procedure throughout the decision making .

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This structure is a considerably large administrative organization that handles the typical day-to day- business of the government. This organization is composed of agencies and departments that employ several bureaucrats, who are non-elected officials, that have different policy and decision-making authority. A bureaucracy is a multilayered rational system with several processes that maintain uniformity and control within the organization.

Bureaucracies have a strict “chain of command”, each official has their place and their work is overseen by someone who is higher up. The power flows from the top of the hierarchy. In this structure, the tasks are broken down and everyone works together to get the job done, there is a division of labor. There are also rules for each job, in that, everyone is adhering to their job duties and doing their jobs properly. This structure and the procedures that are performed by each level are what make having a bureaucracy efficient.

The concept of having a bureaucracy is important for a society seeking a better democracy. A bureaucracy is one of the main ways rational-legal authority has evolved in formal organizations. Rational-legal authority is a form of leadership in which the authority or ruling regime is largely tied to legality and this commonly occurs within bureaucracies.

In the policy making process, some of the bureaucracy’s tasks are to implement, administer, and regulate policy. The bureaucracy is engaged in the clear shaping of policies. They set out to establish the agenda, problems, and goals of policies. The role of bureaucracy in policy making is informative, suggestive and analytical. Policies are created by the legislative and executive branch with certain orders or directions. The documents typed by these branches are usually written in broad terms and must be broken down into more details, which is where the bureaucracies play an important role. A part of the process is to explain regulations and other documents in a detailed manner to help the public understand what the policy is asking. Then, there is the part of implementation that allows the execution of such policy by reading and learning more about what it is saying and ultimately regulating whether the executors should implement. Being the implementer allows the bureaucrats to have resources and time to collect more information and data that would be helpful evaluating the policy making. With the extra information and date, bureaucracies can shape the intended outcome of the policies.

During the formulation stage, bureaucrats can influence the discussion of broad policies through their connections with politicians and the broader public. After the goals are set the bureaucracy helps with policy details through the designing specific programs. Through these programs, there can be an influence on the policy and citizen outcomes. Next, the bureaucracy uses its administrative arm to complete the conclusions of the law through administrative orders and handling the proper paperwork for policy operations.

The bureaucracy is authorized to create rules and regulations affecting the public, especially when it comes to helping with policy making. After implementing and administering, the bureaucracy helps to regulate behavior of the public when it comes to the policies in question.

There are two systems in how bureaucrats receive their authority and are appointed; spoils and meritocratic system. With the spoils system, “individuals are appointed on the basis of their political loyalty, which they are expected to demonstrate in all aspects of their work (Knill, Tosun, 2012).” In the meritocratic system, “bureaucrats are appointed because of their expertise and experience (Knill, Tosun, 2012).” The merit system is about talent, in which, they tend to yield more productive candidates. Their authority stems from essentially knowing or being an expert at their job. The patronage or spoils system yields both skilled and unskilled candidates, but those candidates are offered a position in response to their loyalty and/or support. There are unqualified persons recruited in this process and this can be a threat to the bureaucracy, in that, those candidates may not secure the posts that they are given. The personnel recruited in this type of system has more authority because they are likely favored.

It is more likely that the merit system will be presented when those highly skilled persons are excluded under the spoils system. It seems to be an empirical theory because the greater the extent to which those skilled persons are excluded under spoils system, the more likely the merit system will be presented. If the candidate has a high level of education the more likely for the merit-based system. Candidates that can purchase office may lack the skill needed to obtain it and the skilled candidates may not have the means to deliver services and resources. The spoils system or patronage is simply an exchange, both parties receive something from the deal. The comparison that I found between the two systems is that it is likely for both the merit and spoils system to yield productive officials, but with the merit system the odds are higher. There are pros and cons with both systems, but it is about finding a balance that will allow the bureaucracy to function with stability and structure.

Using relevant literature, compare and contrast the determinates of policy formulation in a parliamentary system and presidential system.

The government oversees policy formulation. Two of the three democratic forms of government are the parliamentary and presidential system. Formulating a policy is a process in which bureaucrats generate options, collect data, and other important information to address certain societal problems. Policy formulation is a conceptualization of a problem by policy makers.

In parliamentary systems, “’the head of government – who can have many different official titles such as prime minister or chancellor – and his or her cabinet are derived from and are responsible to the legislature (Knill & Tosun, 2012).” The formulation of policy is carried out by the executive. In a presidential system, “the president as the head of government is directly or indirectly elected by the citizenry and cannot, or can only on very demanding conditions, be removed from office by the legislature (Knill & Tosun, 2012).” The formulation of policy in this system is not just the executive, but legislative as well.

In both systems the executive branch is key to policy proposals and they tend to work with the ministerial bureaucracies. First, “working with the ministerial bureaucracy allows the bureaucrats to have knowledge from experts such as, tanks, consultancy firms, (political) foundations and scientists, who may be members of epistemic communities (Knill & Tosun, 2012). These experts are very knowledgeable in their field, as they gain knowledge over time and can guide the bureaucrats in forming a policy that will produce the best results. Working with experts allow the actors to have all the important information about a certain topic. Ministerial bureaucracies tend to have access to additional information and can supply that to bureaucrats. When societal problems are too complex, they have access to information from those communities. They can help to influence policy, give advice on course of action, help to understand issues, help develop necessary practices, and support policy alternatives.

In the parliamentary and presidential systems interest groups tend to focus on the executive branch of government. Interest groups can supply valuable information concerning the effects of a policy to be proposed as well as how it might be received by their members. Interest groups are very valuable, being that they can provide information about the ‘political’ dimension of a law proposal. Both systems use additional information to aid them in policy formulation.

Ideological filters are also placed on the party members of the ministerial bureaucracy to limit too many alternatives from arising during the formulation process. There is also a bureaucratic advantage over elected officials when contrasting the systems, bureaucrats are well educated about the issues in question.

The party ideology can be effective in forming policy because it strongly depends upon the extent to which political actors control bureaucrats. Without bureau-shaping or controlling the narrative of the policy, actors involved are to give important, relevant, and honest information, without any bias. The instrument of politicization is needed during this process so that political actors can ensure that ministerial bureaucrats possessing any informational advantage do not deviate from political guidelines when drafting legislation.

The parliamentary system forms a policy or solution to problems quicker, they do not have to deal with as many checks and balances as the presidential system. Both systems go thru some of the same stages when it comes to policy formulation. They have very few differences.

Discuss the problem-definition and agenda-setting stages of policy making. What are the factors that shape how a problem may be defined? Discuss an example of a public problem that has been framed in varying ways by opposing groups.

When it comes to problem definition, the main goal is to understand why a problem is perceived the way it is. Agenda Setting is the process of certain issues being placed on the political agenda, when others are not. The problem definition stage is showing the way a problem or issue is defined and the consequences of that definition on the policy making process. In this process there are some factors that influence the definition of these issues.

Like with many processes, there are some tensions on how an issue should be defined and if it truly needs to be addressed by the policymakers. The agenda setting stage is just that, setting the agenda with the issue in question to find a solution. There are two forms of agendas that include; systemic and institutional. The systemic agenda is about receiving public attention and involving government authority about an issue. The institutional agenda is about the consideration of the policymakers

Problem definition includes identifying the issues, what is causing it, assigning blame and making the government responsible for the solution. It sets the stage for the policy making process, as, it defines the issues and gives the policymakers a clear idea of what is going on in society while helping them understand certain ways to fix it. Defining the problem is about the conception; this can become difficult if the actors involved have different perceptions of the issue. This can cause a strain on the process as they may start to define the problem in different ways and that may deem as equally persuasive as the first definition. Actors may also just oppose the definition of the problem or see that no problem exists at all.

In defining the problem, we need the interests and resources of the involved actors. In some instance, a problem may only exist because people say it does or there may be a problem that needs to be addressed but the political actors may not agree. When someone defines an issue, the way in which they define can depend on their values. The information surrounding the issue needs to be available and certain, or the individual will rely on their values to define the issue. In other words, that individual should trust the information given to them about this issue and that information should be sufficient to negate their values.

There are also characteristics and the framing of a problem that aid in the definition. The way is which actors may present certain problems is commonly referred to as ‘framing’. Framing places an emphasis on change, using selective information and knowledge about the problem. There are seven categories that aid in defining a problem and help with framing; causality, severity, proximity, crises, incidence, novelty and problem populations.

Every problem does not end up the agenda, there are some problems that can’t be fixed by the political actors and the ones that can, sometimes lack the proper resources or time. Agenda setting is about whether that problem will reach the policy agenda or not. Some issues will appear on several agendas, and some not at all, sometimes because they may lack a concrete definition.

The government must address the issue by starting draft measures to the problem. This constitutes the draft agenda. The decision agenda is based on when the government has agreed on that draft agenda and has decided to make it official by placing it on the “decision agenda”. There are different ways that agenda setting can occur; actors outside of the government may issue reforms and present it to the public, which is the outside initiative model. Political leaders may simply move issues from systemic to institutional just to receive support, which is called the mobilization model. There is a balance of power in politics as well as actors that have influence over others, this power can be one way in which they receive the upper hand in agenda setting and one issue trumps another, no matter the relevance.

The contingency model says that agenda-setting is a process that is affected “by chance rather than rational calculation, it is only when pre-existing solutions can be successfully coupled with perceived problems that an issue is put on the agenda (Knill & Tosun, 2012).”

A public problem that was framed in various ways was the impeachment of President Trump. Partisans used any information, whether relevant or not to their advantage in the impeachment trials. The Democrats chose law and order to their frame, saying that the President violated the constitution and they wanted him impeached and removed. The Republicans called the whole thing a conspiracy as they wanted America to decide the fate of the president in the presidential election. They were both trying to shape the thoughts of the public. Different media outlets framed the president as a criminal, ruthless, and inconsiderate of the American people; while other news networks stated that he was innocent, a great president, and just dealing with bitter and jealous people that wanted him out. Some media outlets also called out the political parties for making the Americans turn on each other as they “framed” politics and the president to be something they weren’t.