38 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy
In carrying out policy, a bureaucracy is caught between past majority polit-
ical coalitions and their laws and policies and current majority political coali-
tions and their preferences. Th is is further complicated by the co-management
phenomenon; in fact, bureaucracies face multiple competing principals. In one
principal-agent hierarchy, Congress is presumed to control; in another, the presi-
dent. Th e combination of time and multiple competing principles makes bureau-
cratic adaptiveness essential. In the main, federal bureaucracies have adapted. Th e
speed, direction, and tone of that adaptation are contingent.
Despite the rather negative rhetoric in some agency theory—such phrases as
“agency deception,” “bureaucratic shirking,” and “agency information hoarding”—
the general fi ndings of this research make useful contributions to public adminis-
tration theory.
In reconciling theories of bureaucracy with democratic theory, bureaucracies
sometimes resist the control of principals. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) administrator Anne Burford was directly involved in
illegal activities by actually encouraging hazardous waste operators to violate
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1979. However, the EPA’s
resistance to the Reagan administration started much earlier than the . . .
violations. Th us, as a matter of fact bureaucracies resist change that runs
counter to public or organizational interests whether it contradicts legal man-
dates or not.
Th us, bureaucracies perform an integrative function for U.S. democracy.
Th ey blend demands from past democratic coalitions with those from current
democratic coalitions to produce a policy output at a consistent level. (Wood
and Waterman 1994, 145)Conclusions
Th eories of political control of bureaucracy are central to any sophisticated un-
derstanding of public administration. Th ey are abundant in their variety and are
tested using the full range of methodological techniques. Such theories are as old
as Woodrow Wilson’s writings and as new as agency theory.
It continues to be fashionable to say that there is no politics-administration
dichotomy, as if such a statement conveyed a special insight. As theories of po-
litical control of bureaucracy indicate, to unbundle politics and administration is
a key to understanding how politics controls bureaucracy and how bureaucracy
infl uences politics and policy. Th erefore, it is wrongheaded to approach the sub-
ject of public administration on the assumption that politics and administration
are more or less the same thing. Th e preceding review indicates that the many and
richly varied forms of politics and policy and the equally varied forms of public
administration can, when put into the same equation, advance the development
of verifi able theory.