Bureaucracy: Our Fourth Governmental Branch

Woll writes, “The administrative branch today stands at the very center of our governmental process; it is the keystone of the structure (Woll, 308).” However, he continues on to describe the bureaucracy as a system that is not necessarily democratic. Wilson, too, describes the bureaucracy as “the inevitable consequence and perhaps necessary concomitant of modernity (Wilson, 315).” How then, can we as Americans, accept the bureaucracy as part of our lifestyle if it is difficult to control and not always subject to the limitations of democracy?

The American bureaucracy has grown rapidly since the Founding Fathers set up the American government—although not clearly provided for in the Constitution, bureaucracy is now known as the fourth branch of government, “dominating Congress, exercising strong influence on the president, and only infrequently subject to review by the courts (Woll, 308).” “If the Founding Fathers were to return to examine bureaucratic clientelism, they would, I suspect, be deeply discouraged (Wilson, 319).” If James Q. Wilson indeed believes that bureaucracy would be disappointing to the men who created our government, and we as American citizens in turn believe that, then how does our democratic government account for a process which cannot be easily controlled, because there are no clear constitutional limits upon it? “We are confronted, very broadly speaking, first with the problem of constitutional limitation, and secondly with the problem of democratic participation within the activities of the bureaucracy (Woll, 309).”

Hamilton, who wrote about the administrative process in Federalist 72, implied that the president is constitutionally responsible for the administrative branch; however, the bureaucracy today is set up in a way in which some of its organizations and functions are independent of the president. This brings up the question, then, of who controls the democracy, for as a democratic government, there is a need for checks and balances on all branches of the government, and how the activities of the administrative branch are controlled. Woll points out that “The president is the only official elected nationally, and if the administration is to be held democratically accountable, he alone can stand as its representative (Woll, 311),” but this is not often the case.

Both Congress and the president have a responsibility for the bureaucracy; however, the power is not equally shared. Congress “alone creates and destroys agencies, and determines whether they are to be located within the executive branch or outside it…Congress has the authority to control appropriations and may thus exercise a great deal of power over the administrative arm…Congress also has the authority to define the jurisdiction of agencies. Finally, the Constitution gives to the legislature the power to interfere in high-level presidential appointments (Woll, 310).”

The president, however, may be delegated by Congress the authority to control the bureaucracy, as shown through the War Powers Act during World War II. The president continues to have this power today, but Congress may veto presidential proposals within a certain time limit, thereby decreasing the authority the president has over the administrative branch. “In refusing to give the president permanent reorganization authority, Congress is jealously guarding one of its important prerogatives (Woll, 310).”

It is interesting, but also quite terrifying, to think of Congress as a pool of jealousy, trying to keep all the power it can to itself. This, I believe, goes against the basic principles upon which our government was created: we are a democracy. In the simplest of terms, our government is one that shares power and regulates power between branches, not one which jealously stores all the power it can, in order to hold a feeling of superiority over another branch.

The administrative branch, if subject to the dictations of both the executive and legislative branches, should also then have certain limitations set by the judicial branch, for the judicial branch is the one branch that should be impartial and independent. “Administrative adjudication should not be subject to presidential or congressional control, which would mean political determination of decisions that should be rendered in an objective manner (Woll, 311).”

“It has often been proposed, as a means of alleviating what may be considered the bad effects of combined powers in administrative agencies, to draw a line of control from the original branches of the government to those parts of the bureaucracy exercising similar functions (Woll, 312).” However, “the three branches of the government are not willing to give up whatever powers they may have over administrative agencies (Woll, 312).” Again, I am left with the feeling that in upholding the bureaucracy and in an attempt to contain what little power each branch has over the bureaucracy, all branches of government are then acting in an undemocratic manner.

Wilson then describes the relationship of the bureaucracy to interest groups, and also the relations between governmental units. Many of the major new social programs and departments of the administrative branch of the United States government “were initially adopted by broad coalitions appealing to general standards of justice or to conceptions of the public weal… [But] what was created in the name of the common good is sustained in the name of the particular interest. Bureaucratic clientelism becomes self-perpetuating, in the absence of some crisis or scandal, because a single interest group to which the program matters greatly is highly motivated and well-situated to ward of the criticisms of other groups that have a broad but weak interest in the policy (Wilson, 320).”

Basically, in order to create new agencies or factions of the bureaucracy, public interest must be generated; and once created, the bureaus are usually protected, because it is nearly impossible to destroy the program. “As a result, the Madisonian system makes it relatively easy for the delegation of public power to private groups to go unchallenged and, therefore, for factional interests that have acquired a supportive public bureaucracy to rule without submitting their interests to the effective scrutiny and modification of other interests... (Wilson, 320).” What is interesting, though, is that the “original purpose behind these clientele-oriented departments was neither to subsidize nor to regulate, but to promote, chiefly by gathering and publishing statistics and…research (Wilson, 318).” The purpose, obviously, did not work out very well, for bureaucracy is definitely not an aspect of the government which twiddles its thumbs all day, observing and collecting research.

Woll ends with this note: “We are left with a bureaucratic system that has been fragmented by the Constitution, and in which administrative discretion is inevitable. The bureaucracy reflects the general fragmentation of our political system. It is often the battleground for the three branches of government, and for outside pressure groups which seek to control it for their own purposes (Woll, 312).” This statement really uncovers the ugly side of the bureaucracy—it seems to me to be more of a high paid service which caters to the desires of the masses then a highly revolutionized and carefully thought out democratic institution. The fact that the bureaucracy does not bring together the government but even, to a certain extent, separates the branches from each other, does not make sense. And we are continuously left with the question: is the bureaucracy democratic and should it remain part of our government? But if it is not democratic and should not be part of our government, then what will replace it?