Bureaucracy

Fitz-AP Gov

Bureaucracy: The “Fourth Branch”

• “Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.”

– Richard Nixon

• “Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”– Franz Kafka

• “If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing”– Mollison’s Bureaucracy Hypothesis

What words come to mind with the following images?

Some theories• Weber Model

– Hierarchical authority

– Task specialization

– Merit principle– Impersonal

• The “Garbage Can” Theory– Solutions

looking for problems, not the other way around

• Acquisition and monopolizing– Maximize

budgets– Fire– Water– Public Schools*

– Lack of choice

Pigs is Pigs

Some competing views…

A day in your life…• 6:30 am- FCC ensures radio stations don’t

overlap• 6:45 am- You take for granted the water in

your coffee is safe to drink• 7:02 am- You flush the toilet and the local

gov’t. takes it away• 7:15 am- You check the weather, the

National Weather Service says its going to rain

• 7:22 am- You check the mail and find your tax rebate in the mail

• 7:27 am- On the way to your car, you don’t step in any dog poo. Animal control officers enforce sanitation laws.

• 8:00 am- You get to school. The State Board of Education reviews approves your textbooks.

• 12:48 pm- Lunch. The FDA inspects and improves the contents of your daily meal at school (despite its taste).

• 3:45 pm- You swing by the ATM machine. Your money is there. The FDIC ensures your money is always available to you.

• 4:00 pm- You show up to work. Your employer can’t make you work more than a certain number of hours, thanks to the Labor Dept.

• 8:15 pm- You get home from work and enjoy some peace and quiet. Why? Telemarketers don’t call you because of the National-Do-Not-Call List.

• 11:12- Before you hit the hay, you check your e-mail and stream a movie on Netflix. Both of which would not have been possible without ARPANET and later NSFNET, early computer networking systems that developed the software and networking infrastructure that form the foundations of today’s internet.

Myths of the Bureaucracy

• #1- Americans dislike bureaucrats• Most representative of all the branches of

government


• #2- The government bureaucracy is getting bigger

• Federal- 3%

• State and local are

getting bigger


• #3- Most federal bureaucrats work in Washington D.C.

• Just 16%

• CA: 265,000

• TX: 175,000

• Abroad: 100,000


• Myth #4- Bureaucracies are ineffective, inefficient and always mired in red tape

A Tale of Two Packages

The Federal Bureaucracy What words come to find with the following images? Weber Model-

Acquisition model-

“Garbage Can” theory

What is the underlying message of the Disney film?

Is this message political?

Do you think the bureaucracy operates like this today?

Bureaucratic Myth #1:


