Governmental and Administrative Structures

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Governmental and Administrative Structures
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Outline

• I. What is the Context in Which Public
  Organizations Operate
• II. What is the Relationship Between Public
  Organizations and the Executive
• III. What is the Relationship Between Public
  Organizations and the Legislature

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Outline

• IV. What is the Relationship Between Public
  Organizations and the Judiciary
• V. What is the Relationship Between Public
  Organizations and Other Interested Parties
• VI. Organizational Resources and Issues

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I. What is the Context in Which Public
Organizations Operate

• A. What is Context?
• Context is not merely physical, it includes the.
• beliefs and values that shape our expectations of
  public organizations
• as well as the structures we have developed to
  try and maintain those values.

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Kaufman

• This author argues that the administrative
  history of our governmental machinery can by
  captured by change in emphasis among 3 values -
  representativeness, political neutral competence,
  and executive leadership

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Kaufman

• For this author, group discontent is the dynamic
  force that motivates the quest for new forms of
  administration at particular points in time,
  enough people will be persuaded by one another of
  these discontents to support remedial action

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Kaufman

• During the time the author was writing, he noted
  that most people were dissatisfied with the
  representativeness of the process he argued that
  the solution would be greater decentralization of
  power to lower levels of government

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• B. What are the Features of U.S Context?
• Complex due to founding fathers fear of
  concentrated power
•  Hamilton/Federalists strong, centralized
  government staffed by men of wealth, class and
  education reflects distrust of the people
• Jefferson/Anti-Federalists saw administration as
  linked to the issue of extending democracy - more
  decentralized approach with controls on the
  executive

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II. What is the Relationship Between Public
Organizations and the Executive

• A. Administrative Organizations
•  Executive Office of the President (Office of
  Management and Budget National Security Council
  Council of Economic Advisors) advises and assists
  the President in formulating and implementing
  national policy
• Cabinet Level Executive DepartmentsDOD HHS
  Treasury Agriculture Interior Transportation
  Justice Commerce State Labor Energy HUD
  Education Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security
• Independent agencies, regulatory commissions, and
  public corporations
• Government Printing Office, Library of Congress,
  General Accounting Office

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II. What is the Relationship Between Public
Organizations and the Executive

• B. Tools for executive control over
  administrative organizations
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• Executive orderpresidential mandate directed to
  and governing, with the effect of law, the
  actions of government officials and agencies
• Veto
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• Political appointees

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III. What is the Relationship Between Public
Organizations and the Legislature

• A.     Structural control mechanisms
• Legislative vetoany action proposed by the
  executive or agency under provisions of a
  particular piece of legislation is subject to the
  approval or disapproval of Congress, usually
  within 30 to 90 days (declared unconstitutional
  in Chadha (1983) but still used)
• Sunset lawsused to assess the performance of
  agencies and to eliminate those that are not
  successful specify life span for program and
  require renewal for continuation
• Sunshine lawsrequire agencies to conduct work in
  public view

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III. What is the Relationship Between Public
Organizations and the Legislature

• B. Supervisory control mechanisms
• Oversightcommittee with jurisdiction over
  particular agencies hearings CBO GAO
• Caseworkusing agencies to meet constituent needs
  

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IV. What is the Relationship Between Public
Organizations and the Judiciary

• Rulemaking-concerned with establishing general
  guidelines that would apply to a class of people
  or a class of actions in the future
• Governed by the Administrative Procedures Act
  seeks to insure that rules are based on proper
  legal authority, that there are both adequate
  notice of the rule making and an opportunity for
  citizens to be heard, that the rule is clear and
  unambiguous, and that people are given sufficient
  advance warning that the new rule will take
  affect

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• Negotiated rulemaking - an alternative means of
  dispute resolution that would not require formal
  legal process
• Brings together interested parties and try to
  arrive at consensus

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• Adjudication- desire to see that citizens are
  treated fairly and are not subjected to arbitrary
  decisions

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Rules vs Standards Debate

• Here is the rules and standards debate in a
  nutshell. Law translates background social
  policies or political principles such as truth,
  fairness, efficiency, autonomy, and democracy
  into a grid of legal directives that decision
  makers in turn apply to particular cases and
  facts.
• These mediating legal directives take different
  forms that vary in the relative discretion they
  afford the decision maker.
• These forms can be classified as either rules or
  standards to signify where they fall on the
  continuum of discretion.
• Rules, once formulated, afford decision makers
  less discretion that do standards

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V. What is the Relationship Between Public
Organizations and Other Interested Parties

• Political appointee connectionfriction tends to
  exist between the executives appointed by elected
  officials and the government employees they are
  supposed to lead
•  Client connectiontop administrators are quite
  sensitive to the dominant interests or clients
  they represent
•  Cognate agency connectionrelated or connected
  seldom one agency alone involved in policy
  jurisdictional and mission overlap
•  Media connectionbetter relations with press,
  more successful policy makers are in doing their
  job, easy to understand, cover and report
•  Activist connectionno organization is safe from
  the wrath of activists groups demonstrations,
  boycotts,

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VI. Organizational Resources and Issues

•  A. Resources Denhardt
• Staff (expertise) legislation is vague giving
  discretion to the administration political clout
• External-public opinion, support from clientele
  groups, members of the legislature, others in
  executive branch
• Internal-information, expertise, cohesion,
  leadership

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Resources cont

• Starling
• Resources, external support (strength/size,
  dispersion, unity)
• Professionalism,
• Leadership-basis of power

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• Coercive power-ability to threaten punishment and
  deliver penalties magnitude of punishment real
  or imagined, other party's estimate of the
  probability the leader will mete out punishment
• Connection power-personal ties with important
  people inside and outside an organization
• Expert power-reputation for special knowledge,
  expertise, or skills in a given area
• Dependence power-peoples perception that they are
  dependent on the leader either for help or for
  protection
• Obligation power-efforts to do favors for people
  who they expect will feel an obligation to return
  those favors
• Legitimate power-formal position held by the
  leader
• Referent power-identification of others with the
  leader-liked, admired, respected
• Reward power-ability to make followers believe
  that compliance with the leaders wishes will lead
  to pay, promotion, recognition, or other rewards

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B. Costs

• Every important administrative action has
  indirect costs, externalities, or spillover costs
• Who is going to be glad? How glad?
• Who is going to be mad? How mad?

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C. Strategies

• Cooperation 2 groups can share compatible goals
  without one having to completely give in to the
  other
• Persuasion-ability to link behavior wanted to
  self-interest of other party
• Bargaining-negotiation of an agreement
• Compromise-single, isolated issue, outcome one of
  more or less
• Logrolling-more than one issue at stake,
  reciprocity
• Coalition-combination of 2 or more organizations
  for a specific purpose
• Competition- struggle between 2 or more parties
  with a 3rd party mediating--seize the initiation
  or co-opting the opposition
• Conflict-pursue goals that are fundamentally
  incompatible

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Wilson

• Three Key Organizational Issues
• Critical Tasksthose behaviors, which if
  performed successfully, enable the organization
  to manage its critical environmental problem
• Missionagreement and widespread endorsement of
  the way the critical task is defined
• Autonomysufficient freedom of action and
  external political support to permit it to
  redefine its tasks as it sees best