The Federal Bureaucracy

The purpose of this paper is to assess the contribution of the Federal Bureaucracy to modern American Government. It will discuss the unique characteristics that the bureaucracy brings to the mix of national institutions, and consider why the bureaucracy is able to make its contribution to government and democracy in the U.S. It will especially consider the structural features that permit the institution to make its special contribution.

The Federal bureaucracy grew slowly in America. There were only three posts in Washington's first Cabinet; and there were not that many more at the beginning of this century. What allowed the growth of the Federal bureaucracy as a positive force in modern government was the end of the spoils system in the late nineteenth century. That system was replaced by the Civil Service system, in which jobs were and are filled by competent persons selected for their merit by procedures that are mandated by law and that are scrupulously fair. The concept of due process could hardly have a better examplar than the procedure by which a Civil Servant is hired or promoted in America.

Of course, not every post in the Federal bureaucracy could be filled by the Civil Service. Obviously the President must be free to appoint his Cabinet members, who thus become the heads of the major branches of the bureaucracy. The Cabinet Secretaries in turn must be able to appoint their top aides, second-in-command, advisors, and so on. What has happened is that it is

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g the Constitution is that they need to be sure any change will be an improvement, not a well-intentioned fiasco, before they will cooperate with carrying it out. Civil servants are the butt of many jokes in America, as everyone knows. There are always a few who deal with the people and whose social skills are less than gracious. Nevertheless, most Americans seem to know that the American civil service is almost unique in the world in the levels of efficiency, loyalty, and productivity that government employees routinely achieve. The civil service in Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand is probably roughly comparable to the American civil service in these traits. The civil service of almost any other country is not. Another reason why the Federal bureaucracy has been able to serve America well in the twentieth century is that, for the most part, its efforts are complemented, rather than duplicated, by the civil service within each of the states. There are some exceptions to this generalization, of course, and they tend to receive publicity in the newspapers, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. The careful division of rights and duties between the federal government and the state governments that is provided in

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