lOMoARcPSD|51793812
Class Notes
The Federal Bureaucracies:
•Bloated Hierarchy- presidents appoint about 3,000 people to full time
positions, and 7,000 to part time positions
•Only between 1,200 - 1,4000 of these positions require senate
confirmation
•Additional hierarchy: often takes hundreds of days for all these
appointments to be made
•Bureaucrats:
•implement laws
•enforce rules
•settle disputes via administrative adjudication Government
Corporations:
•Gov’t agencies that operate more like a business
•Currently 17
•Amtrak, U.S. postal, FDIC
•Independent regulatory commissions
•Rule-making bodies, somewhat insulated from politics Federal Elections
Commission (FEC):
•4 missions of agencies:
•Clientele Agencies (for ex. department of agriculture)
•Agencies that maintain public order and deal with foreign policy matters
(for ex.
department of justice)
•Regulatory agencies
•Agencies that redistribute income (for ex. social security administration)
Political Principle: president and coalitions of members of congress
•Implementation Agent: unit in the federal democracy
Bureaucratic Drift
President managing federal democracies
•Appoints sympathetic agency heads
•Tries to influence budget making and publicly supports key policies
•Uses regulatory review shortly after laws are passed and executive
orders • Every president has its own management
