Who Governs the American Administrative State? A Bureaucratic-Centered Image of Governance

Implicitly or explicitly, analysts of bureaucracy have used a great many theories, or metaphorical images, to describe the role of bureaucracy in the governance process. Yet no consensus has been reached that any particular image best describes the extent of bureaucracy's power. An image called the “bureaucratic-centered” view of governance is introduced in the first part of this essay and related both to the power and the vulnerability of bureaucracy. In the essay's second part, twenty other images of bureaucracy in governance are explored. Six of these images view bureaucracy as a weak actor: executive dominance; principal-agent; bureaucratic neutrality; “pure” pluralism; Marxism, or “pure” elitism; and bureaucratic capture. Eight images view bureaucracy as one significant actor among others: polyarchy; interest-group liberalism; subgovernments, or subsystems; iron triangles; the military-industrial complex; issue networks; advocacy coalitions; and corporatism. And six images view bureaucracy as the predominant actor: bureaucratic dominance, bureaucratic politics, technocracy, rationalism, public choice, and the garbage-can. The bureaucratic-centered image is used as a benchmark to evaluate each of the other images of governance.