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Bureaucratic Power and Political Accountability

The political accountability of a bureaucracy is enforced through multiple channels, both legislative and executive. Political interests in the legislature and in the executive branch are frequently at odds with one another, making it difficult to enforce accountability consistently or effectively. The situation is made more complex by the fact that most bureaucracies operate under joint authority delegated by both the chief executive and the legislative branch and have considerable discretion to make independent choices. The difficulty is further compounded by the hybrid systems of personnel management found in different parts of the executive hierarchy in the national government and in many states and localities. Frequently, top executives owe their positions to appointment through political channels, but the bulk of their subordinates are hired and usually retained through job-related merit procedures. In state and local government, the mix of political and merit employees in a bureaucracy varies widely. The presence of public-employee unions and collective bargaining raises other issues of conflicting political and bureaucratic accountability. Another factor limiting accountability is the inability of top executives to command wholehearted responses from administrative subordinates. A substantial portion of the work of top executives is inspecting, monitoring, and overseeing the activities of their staff to ensure as much congruence as possible between executive directives and the performance of agencies. Bureaucratic accountability is the principles of political accountability applied in an effort to control bureaucratic power. It is not simply a matter of bureaucracy being accountable. All institutions of government can be accountable only to officials or to institutions outside themselves. Also, the bureaucracy cannot be viewed as a whole; its many subparts have institutional bases and priorities of their own. Formal responsibility for legislative oversight has passed from full committees to subcommittees. Though many hearings have been held, the overall impact has been less effective oversight.