Session 8: Behind the Curtain.

Graham T. Allison, in his article, 'Bureaucratic Politics: A Paradigm and Some Policy Implications' posed a broad question that cut to the heart of bureaucratic politics:Why do governments do what they do? Theories of bureaucratic politics address this question. Such frameworks typically reject the politics-administration dichotomy underpinning theories of bureaucratic control, viewing this division as an analytical convenience that imposes too steep a cost on theoretical development.

An embryonic theory of Bureaucratic Politics began to emerge from a series of studies examining decision making in the executive branch. A significant claim was about the government decisions being products of bargaining and negotiation among interested political actor.  The concept of bureaucratic politics model stemmed from the views of Dwight Waldo, a renowned American social scientist. He claimed that efficiency and democracy are compatible and that the work of government could be segregated into two branches, decisions and execution. However, the studies of this model were discursive rather than explicitly theoretical. The theorists have adopted a highly mathematical approach to explaining the behavior of states and the actors involved in the decision making process, followed by the execution of these decisions.

An example of this model can be seen in the United States, where the U.S President shares the decision-making with National Security Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Department, Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is most commonly applied to national policy making and particularly to U.S foreign policy. The theory remains underdeveloped and the traditional pluralistic view has been challenged by many critics. Not only this, it has also raised questions about government accountability and it eventually leads to incrementalism.

Conclusively, things are often viewed as a zero-sum game, where decisions are made by multiple bureaucracies competing against each other and also helping each other in providing solutions to a common problem. Although the model has flaws and has been challenged recently by social scientists, it is widely adopted by a lot of countries all across the globe.