The Venues of Influence: A New Theory of Political Control of the Bureaucracy

Waterman, Richard W.; Rouse, Amelia; Wright, Robert

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024371

Cited by 77 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…He found that Congress and president, the two core political principals, have the highest influence on public organizations. Waterman et al (1998) support these findings. In two surveys, they asked the employees of two environmental protection agencies to rate the degree of influence on their agency by a number of political and administrative actors and found that "agents do not perceive that influence is exerted solely by each separate principal in a dyadic fashion; rather bureaucrats perceive that certain types of principals … exert similar forms of influence" (Waterman et al 1998: 23) Political influence analysis in a parliamentary context: The Netherlands…”

supporting

confidence: 62%

Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy

2008

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The establishment of autonomous public bodies during the past two decades has created a highly fragmented public sector. Using a dataset with more than 200 Dutch public sector organisations, this article examines three related sets of questions: to what extent a relationship exists between formal and de facto autonomy; the level of influence that interested parties exert upon those organizations; whether a relationship exists between levels of formal and de facto autonomy and the level of influence exercised by these parties. We find that formal autonomy does not reinforce de facto autonomy; organizations with less autonomy report higher levels of political influence when policy autonomy is concerned; and that organizations with more autonomy report higher societal influence on their financial autonomy.

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confidence: 62%

Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy

2008

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“…In the past, studies of lobbying have focused predominantly on legislative lobbying, but increasingly scholars are analyzing agency lobbying. Tools scholars have used to examine bureaucratic lobbying include public comments (Balla 1998;Golden 1998;Nixon et al 2002;Petracca 1986;Yackee and Yackee 2006;McKay and Yackee 2007), federal advisory committees (Balla and Wright 2001;Carpenter 2002), surveys of bureaucrats (Furlong 1998;Waterman et al 1998), and case studies of specific agencies and issues (e.g., de Figueiredo and Tiller 2001;Moe 1987;Wood 1988). …”

Section: Previous Research On Legislative Lobbying and Bureaucratic Lmentioning

confidence: 99%

The decision to lobby bureaucrats

McKay

2010

Public Choice

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“…While the breadth of research is narrower on public bureaucracies in the United States, similar findings to those at the national level regarding the influence of executives and legislatures have emerged (e.g., Waterman, Rouse, and Wright 1998;Waterman and Rouse 1999;Waterman and Meier 1998). The formal powers of the governor, for example, have been shown significantly to affect the decisions of state agency heads (Herbert, Brudney, and Wright 1983;Dometrius 2002).…”

Section: Public Agencies In Sub-national Domainsmentioning

confidence: 74%

Who’s Whispering in Your Ear? The Influence of Third Parties Over State Agency Decisions

Kelleher

Yackee

2006

Political Research Quarterly

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S tate administrative agencies play a critical role in the policymaking process in the United States. However, within both policy formation and implementation, state agencies do not act alone. Rather, agencies are challenged to balance the preferences of a number of powerful constituencies-in particular, governors, legislators, and interest groups. Despite the importance of both agencies and third parties to the policy process in the American states, there have been few theoretical and empirical studies dedicated to the interactions of these policy stakeholders. In this article, we seek to fill that void and focus on two primary questions.First, do third parties influence the major policy decisions of state agencies? Over the past several decades, while scholars have given some attention to state agencies, the primary focus of most work has been the national bureaucracy. Additionally, scholars often analyze the separate and distinct influences of executives, the legislative branch, or interest groups. Few previous studies provide an over time, empirical assessment of the joint influences of these three third party actorsinterest groups, governors, and legislators-on state agency outputs. As a result, we do not fully appreciate or understand the degree of influence that they hold over major budgetary and policy decisions made by state agencies.Second, what effect do the informal interactions of third parties have on their levels of influence over the policies and decisions of state administrators? While the interactions between third parties and bureaucrats take two formsformal and informal-the vast majority of existing literature focuses, perhaps incorrectly, on the former at the expense of the latter. 1 We define formal interactions as those relations that occur between bureaucrats and third parties and are structured by political institutions, constitutional powers, and current laws. These interactions include, for example, the legislature' s ability to set agency budgets, the governor' s powers of appointment and removal, or an interest group' s right to submit public comments to pending bureaucratic rules and regulations. These forms of interaction are visible and easier to track by observers of American politics, and therefore, have garnered the majority of scholarly attention.In contrast, informal interactions are the methods of influence that generally take place outside of established political or legal frameworks. These communications are often characterized by difficult to observe, ex parte contacts and tend to occur below the radar screen of most political observers. Perhaps due to the difficulties in measuring these "whispers" within political dialogues, most previous research does not fully identify or account for the role of informal, third party influence over the bureaucracy. Given we know that third parties frequently use both formal and informal tactics in an attempt to affect bureaucrats' decisions on policy formation and implementation (This article expands our understanding regarding the lev...

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The Venues of Influence: A New Theory of Political Control of the Bureaucracy

Cited by 77 publications

References 16 publications

Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy

Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy

The decision to lobby bureaucrats

Who’s Whispering in Your Ear? The Influence of Third Parties Over State Agency Decisions

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