Bureaucratic Responsiveness:

Conceptual Issues and Current Research

Grace Hall Saltzstein
University of California, Riverside

ABSTRACT

An examination of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical

analyses of bureaucratic responsiveness reveals that, despite years of
research, there is considerable confusion and ambiguity. Assessments
as to the extent and nature of bureaucratic responsiveness vary
tremendously; conflicting definitions of the central concept are
commonly used; and competing—and perhaps equally valid—
conceptualizations often are ignored entirely. Drawing upon relevant
literature, this essay examines the concept of bureaucratic
responsiveness and attempts to delineate (1) the major boundaries of
the concept, (2) the principal theoretical and methodological
limitations of various approaches, and (3) the main questions that
have been thus far overlooked or inadequately addressed.

The problem of bureaucratic responsiveness remains a sig-

nificant concern to theorists, researchers, government officials,
and the public in general. The growth and evolution of large,
powerful public organizations with limited and ambiguous
constitutional justification has fed these concerns. Inevitably,
questions revolve around how to reconcile bureaucratic policy
making with democracy in the absence of standard mechan-
isms of direct popular control.

Interest in these questions has waxed and waned, with a

marked resurgence evident in recent years as observers have
responded to the surprisingly successful attempts of the
Reagan administration to direct the bureaucracy and as the
"new institutionalism" in political science has brought renewed
interest in all institutions of government Yet years of theo-
retical, conceptual, and empirical analyses have failed to elim-
inate or even acknowledge fully the confusion and ambiguity
surrounding the problem-
Assessments of the extent and nature of bureaucratic
J-PAKT, 2(1992):l:63-88 responsiveness vary considerably, as preferences for alternative

63 /Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

definitions of democracy and of basic democratic values lead

scholars to adopt conflicting definitions of the central concept,
while ignoring or dismissing equally valid alternative concep-
tualizations. While recent analyses show some promise for
acknowledging alternative views, oversights and biases
continue to affect research. Drawing upon relevant literature,
this essay examines the concept of bureaucratic responsiveness
and attempts to delineate (1) the major boundaries of the con-
cept, (2) the principal theoretical and methodological limita-
tions of various approaches, and (3) the main questions that
have been thus far overlooked or inadequately addressed.

While belief in the concept of a politics/administration

dichotomy may never have been either as widespread or as
uncritical as some have maintained (Martin 1988), the general
influence of the concept did let analysts avoid some of the
thornier theoretical problems inherent in the separation of
powers (OToole 1987). Hence, scholarly interest in bureau-
cratic responsiveness awaited recognition that administration
could not be divorced from politics, but was instead a "con-
tinuation of the legislative process" (Herring 1936, 218).
Scholars taking this perspective focused on the problems of
exerting democratic control over a policy making bureaucracy,
and argued over the extent of the problem and how best to
alleviate it (see, for example, Appleby 1965; Finer 1941;
Friedrich 1940). Further, analysts at this point tended to
associate responsiveness with accountability, with the entire
literature "pitched at a high theoretical level" (Hill 1981). Later
scholars shifted focus to the effects of specific accountability
mechanisms, or utilized research on legislative responsiveness
(Ingram et al. 1980; Eulau and Prewitt 1973) as a model for
analyzing general issues of bureaucratic representation and
responsiveness (Mann 1976; Tucker and Ziegler 1980). These
scholars' efforts to develop measurable indicators of respon-
siveness inevitably refocused attention on central theoretical
and conceptual issues regarding the meaning of responsive-
ness. More recent general analyses of bureaucratic control-
lability expand on these issues (Gruber 1987; Gormley 1989),
while a large and growing literature uses rational models and
empirical tests of these models to explore elements of respon-
siveness in the context of relationships between Congress and
the bureaucracy and between bureaucratic agents and political
principals generally (for reviews, see Moe 1987; March and
Olsen 1989; Bendor 1990; Levinthal 1988).

Unfortunately, theoretical advances in the study of

bureaucratic responsiveness have been hindered by the ten-
dency of earlier researchers either to adopt narrow concep-
tualizations of responsiveness or to borrow conceptualizations

64/7-PART, January 1992

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

from studies of legislative responsiveness, while the focus of

more-recent research on control of bureaucracy sometimes
slights key elements of responsiveness. Nonetheless, the evolu-
tion of recent research on political control of bureaucracy
promises to bring renewed attention to the theoretical and
conceptual complexity of bureaucratic responsiveness. Recent
research at least has begun to acknowledge the sometimes-
complex links between conceptions of democracy, specific
democratic norms and values, and specific institutional mech-
anisms to promote those norms (see Gruber 1987). As Pateman
(1971, 304) has argued in regard to democratic norms gener-
ally, "there is more than one way to interpret. .. norms and
values traditionally associated with democracy; there is more
than one view on what 'really' constitutes responsiveness of
leaders," and differences in interpretation are tied to notions
about which forms of institutions "give practical expression to
those norms and values" (emphasis in the original). Such inter-
relationships are evident in the way in which two very differ-
ent views of bureaucracy's representational role in a demo-
cratic system appear to shape analysts' conceptions of bureau-
cratic responsiveness.

BUREAUCRATIC RESPONSIVENESS TO
THE PUBLIC'S WISHES

One perspective sees the bureaucracy as a representative

of the public and defines bureaucratic responsiveness in much
the same fashion as legislative responsiveness. That is, it is
assumed that bureaucratic responsiveness entails responding to
the wishes of the public. However, few authors adopting this
perspective acknowledge any disagreement over the appro-
priate fashion by which public wishes are to be entered into
bureaucratic deliberations, despite the fact that pronounced
disagreement as to the proper channels of interaction between
citizens and bureaucracy is evident in both the theory and the
practice of public administration.

The traditional view defines elected officials as the legit-

imate representatives of the public, with the bureaucracy serv-
ing as a neutral instrument that elected officials are to use in
meeting public demands. According to this view, elected offi-
cials are accorded sole responsibility for representing public
interests. The bureaucracy provides no independent assessment
of public wishes; it responds to the public solely through faith-
ful adherence to elected officials' interpretation of public
wishes.

Obviously compatible with Woodrow Wilson's 1887 treat-

ise on administration, which stimulated the acceptance of the

65/J-PART, January 1992

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

politics/administration dichotomy, this view—labeled "over-

head democracy" by Redford (1969) and the "formalist" model
by Frug (1984)—retained strong support among administrators
and analysts even after support for the politics/administration
dichotomy waned. Gruber (1987,11), for example, argues that
"bureaucracies pose a problem for democracy when they make
governmental decisions—that is, public policy—and thereby
short circuit electoral channels of public control." Similarly,
Ziegler et al. (1974, 6) argue that, "At the risk of oversimplifi-
cation, the thrust of standard political theory is that, even
though a balance between efficiency and responsiveness must
be maintained, the ultimate policy initiative should rest with
the elected representatives." Social criticism for some time has
focused on the difficulties of maintaining an appropriate level
of legislative dominance (Galbraith 1965; Hyneman 1950; Lowi
1969), and empirical research continues to show that many
practicing administrators believe that elected officials can and
should exercise at least some degree of dominance over them
(Greene 1982; Gruber 1987).

An alternative perspective on the bureaucracy's role in the

democratic political system is evident both in administrative
practice and in democratic theory. This view allows much
more autonomy on the part of the bureaucracy because it
assumes that the bureaucracy exercises independent represen-
tational functions that may be equivalent to the representa-
tional functions performed by elected officials. Theoretical
justification for this perspective tends to focus on the fact that
popular sovereignty in the American political system is
expressed through a structure that "is republican in character—
a system of institutions sharing power and thereby giving vent
to democratic will, but also seeking to curb its excesses and
those of its rulers" (Burke 1989,183). Hence, it has been argued
that "the people" delegate their authority to three equal
branches of government, that elections are simply one of
several means of selecting authorized agents of the people, and
that elected and nonelected officers alike may "represent" the
public in direct fashion (Rohr 1986; Storing 1976). Some
analysts contend that the bureaucracy actually may be superior
to the legislature in representing the public Long (1952,
811-13), for example, argues that vital interests are "unrepre-
sented, underrepresented, or malrepresented" in Congress and
that bureaucrats

are likely to be more responsive to the desires and needs of the broad
public than a highly selected slice whose responsiveness is enforced
by a mechanism of elections that frequently places more power in the
hands of campaign backers than voters.

66/J-PART, January 1992

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

While analysts frequently disagree as to how far administrators

may go in competing with the legislature, clear support for an
independent representational role for bureaucracy has been
evident in pluralist theories (Dahl 1956), in analyses of bureau-
cratic politics, in administrative reforms during the New Deal
period, and in the "new public administration" of the 1970s.
More recently, analysts attempting to develop an ethics of
bureaucracy have acknowledged the complexity of the consti-
tutional system and the ways in which multiple democratic
norms (e.g., procedural respect and public orientation) may
conflict, concluding that direct obligations to the public may
override allegiance to either elected officials or the judiciary
(Thompson 1980 and 1988; Cooper 1982; Burke 1989).

Hence, one major perspective on bureaucratic responsive-

ness views the bureaucracy as a representative of the public.
However, analysts adopting this perspective disagree as to
whether the bureaucracy owes responsiveness directly and
independently to the public or whether such responsiveness is
indirect only, flowing from elected officials' representation of
the public.

BUREAUCRATIC RESPONSIVENESS TO
THE INTERESTS OF THE STATE

A major alternative perspective toward bureaucratic repre-

sentation emphasizes the responsibility of the bureaucracy to
"represent" the state in interactions with the public (Pitkin
1967,41). Indeed, Rosenbloom (1974,163) argues that

The history of the United States bureaucracy and some of the most
fundamental features of the personnel system support this view more
than they support any other. Political neutrality regulations, loyalty-
security provisions, and the traditional judicial doctrine concerning
the constitutionalrightsof public employees have all been premised
largely on a conception of federal servants as beingrepresentativesof
the government or state, rather than of any outside group or as their
own agents.

Looking at the representative function of bureaucracy

from this perspective focuses attention on the instrumental
nature of bureaucratic existence and the objective, substantive
functions performed by bureaucracy. Thus, it is emphasized
that administrative agencies were created for specific purposes,
and that their primary responsibility is to provide "good
administration," which may be defined in a variety of ways.

Theoretical support for this view of the representational

function of bureaucracy typically ascribes a unique role to the
bureaucracy that may be independent of the wishes of either

67/J-PART, January 1992

 Bureaucratic Responsiveness

elected officials or the public. Here, bureaucracies may be

viewed as "agents of the law" (Wood 1988), providing the
"ballast that maintains the ship of state in unsteady seas"
(Aberbach and Rockman 1988). Theorists and analysts adopt-
ing this perspective ascribe a variety of roles to bureaucracy,
contending, for example, that bureaucrats may represent faith-
fully "static coalitions from the past" (Wood 1988, 231) em-
bedded in policy against the enthusiasm of transitory elected
officials, or they may act as "administrative statesmen" to
provide sober, dispassionate assessment of the whims and
passions of the public (Herring 1936; Appleby 1965; Waldo
1948).

In this fashion, a bureaucracy performing as a represen-

tative of the state may act as a counterbalance to the vices
inherent in more popular mechanisms of democratic control.
According to this view, responsiveness frequently is assessed
on the basis of substantive actions of bureaucracy rather than
on the link between bureaucratic actions and public or elected
officials' preferences. Commonly utilized standards of assess-
ment include efficiency, fiscal integrity, accountability, equity,
neutral competence, expertise, and professionalism (Fesler
1980; Kaufman 1969; Wilson 1967), and bureaucrats may be
expected to respond to objective needs in addition to, or even
instead of, public preferences (Schumaker and Loomis 1979).1

CONSEQUENCES OF ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES

No single perspective on bureaucratic responsiveness has

gained dominance in either the practice or study of public
administration, despite the fact that different perspectives
inevitably lead to contradictory conclusions as to what respon-
siveness requires in any given situation. Of course, as Gruber
(1987) and others acknowledge, the selection by bureaucrats of
a perspective on responsiveness may be crucial. The perspec-
tive becomes an important component of the bureaucrats'
generalized role conceptions that—presumably—affect their
behavior.

Those bureaucrats who adopt one or the other version of

the first perspective—emphasizing responsiveness to the
public's wishes—are likely to behave in characteristic ways.
For example, those whose theoretical conception of the bureau-
cratic role has been influenced by notions of administrative
•Pitkin (1967,160^7) and others argue pluralism are likely t o employ such "political" decision making
coalition
^ S ^ S T ^ S T K **•**» « **&^Z ***•& ™* compromising
responsiveness may occur in oppo- among competing groups, while those who believe in either
sition to or in the absence of public legislative or presidential dominance are more likely to
opinion or demands. emphasize obedience to rules and direct orders.

68//-PAKT, January 1992


2
As the differences between Gormley
(1989) and Gruber (1987) suggest,
analysts disagree as to when or
whether the public or elected officials
are less capable than are bureaucrats
of judging public policies.
Bureaucratic Responsiveness
On the other hand, those bureaucrats who adopt the
second perspective—emphasizing responsiveness to the inter-
ests of die state—are likely to respond according to their own
interpretation of the requirements of this role. For example,
those influenced by the vestiges of a politics/administration
dichotomy and norms of neutral competence may approach
substantive responsiveness in terms of expertise or profession-
alism. Administrators adopting this perspective, referred to by
Dotson (1957) as the "corporate objectivity approach to admin-
istrative responsibility," assume that scientific standards and
expertise should provide the basis of administrative response,
especially when policies cannot easily be judged by the public
or by elected officials.2 In those cases, rationality will deter-
mine bureaucratic responses to substantive policy needs.
Others may act as administrative statesmen (Appleby 1965;
Storing 1980; Waldo 1948), responding to their interpretations
of the public interest, or as change agents with primary
responsibilities to achieve social equity (Marini 1971).
DEFINING RESPONSIVENESS
Even if analysts can agree on a particular perspective on
bureaucratic responsiveness, difficulties arise in defining the
general concept of responsiveness. In order to operationalize
the concept, certain assumptions must be made about the
appropriate targets of governmental responsiveness, the wishes
or interests to which government should respond, and the
form that governmental responses should take. Consequently,
the boundaries of the concept are established by answering the
questions of responsiveness to whom? to what? and in what
form? Yet answering these questions is anything but simple,
and the questions themselves often are overlooked in current
analyses (Gruber 1987; Gormley 1989).
For example, those who advocate bureaucratic responsive-
ness to the public frequently sidestep the problems of defining
the relevant public. Here, an initial problem of "appropriate
inclusion" arises in defining the population to be considered
as the community for decision making purposes (Dahl and
lindblom 1953). Where should the boundaries of the relevant
community be drawn: at the level of neighborhoods, cities,
states, or regions, or at the level of the nation as a whole? The
theoretical problem arises because a bare majority within a
particular community can become a minority in a slightly
larger community, such that "however impeccable democratic
decision making may be within a given community, the out-
comes are in some sense determined by the previous and
inescapably undemocratic decisions that defined them in the
first place" (Whelan 1983).
69/J-PART, January 1992
Bureaucratic Responsiveness

While responsiveness to a particular population, such as

residents of a neighborhood, may preclude responsiveness to
an alternately defined population, such as residents of the
entire city, analysts of bureaucratic responsiveness or, more
recently, of the political "control" of bureaucracy, continue to
examine a single population as the appropriate target of
responsiveness and ignore the effect of bureaucratic decisions
on other potential populations. Yet, as Salamon and Wamsley
(1975) note, bureaucrats often are afforded discretion in
designating a target population and hence legitimately might
be chastised for ignoring any potential population.

Similarly, questions arise as to whose interests within any

given community should engender a response. Should institu-
tions be responsive to the interests of the mass public, voters,
attentive elites, organized groups, or individuals? Administra-
tors face demands from numerous actors, including individual
legislators, legislative committees, legislative chambers, chief
executives, agency superiors, agency constituents, individuals
affected by a policy, immediate clientele, or some specific
group, such as the socially disadvantaged.

Not surprisingly, these potential populations often express

conflicting preferences, and theory provides little guidance as
to which combatants should be heard. Again, other democratic
beliefs are liable to influence preferences such that proponents
of legislative dominance look for deference to the legislature,
pluralists expect deference to group interests, and public
choice proponents call for maximizing individual utility in
market-exchange terms. The conclusions of any given approach
thus are determined by the premises of the argument, so that
the lack of ability to decide to whom bureaucracies should
respond critically constrains the ability to assess the extent of
responsiveness in bureaucracy.

Analysts' tendency to focus on a single target group and

extrapolate to the general population exacerbates the likelihood
of inaccurately or inadequately assessing responsiveness.
Responsiveness to low-income clientele may displease middle-
income constituents (Viteritti 1983); responsiveness to actual
users of a public service may come at the expense of potential
users who are "screened out" (Katz et al. 1975; Nelson 1980);
deference to legislators may come at the expense of respon-
siveness to the president (Wood 1988) or to a general public
interest (Moe 1987). A focus on any one target group rather
than an alternate group thus can result in radically different
conclusions about the responsiveness of the bureaucracy.

70/J-PART, January 1992


'See Schumaker 0975); Sharp (1981);
Mladenka (1981); Meier and England
(1984); Gormley et aL (1983); and
Wood 0988).
Bureaucratic Responsiveness
Similar problems confront the researcher in determining
which aspects of a target population's wishes or interests
require a response. In general, researchers have assumed that
responsiveness is owed either to the demands and preferences
of the designated population, to the interests or needs of the
population, or to some combination of the two. Those who
assume that responsiveness means "reflecting and giving
expression to the will of the people" must still determine how
to measure the people's will (Pennock 1952,790-807). Should
one measure articulated demands, general public opinion, or
some combination of the two?
Furthermore, which demands must be met—all of them,
even if they are contradictory, or only the most intensely felt—
or most intensely articulated—ones?3 If general public opinion
is the basis of action, which opinions are relevant; how much
support must an opinion have before action is taken; and how
do we assess uninformed opinions, strongly felt minority
opinions, or situations in which opinion is divided or absent
entirely? Is responsiveness a winner-take-all proposition or
does it require some attempt to give weight to competing
claims or to provide something for everyone?
Complications multiply if one allows the possibility
that bureaucratic responsiveness may entail responding to
community "needs," as well as—or even in opposition to—
community wishes (Schumaker and Loomis 1979). Reflecting
the "independence" position in the "mandate-independence"
problem in representation theory (Pitkin 1967; Eulau and Karps
1977; Pennock 1979), this view asserts the possibility of
responsiveness in the absence of apparent public opinion or
even in the presence of public opinion that contradicts the
representative's perception of the situation.
This view also assumes that public desires may well
"suggest" the interests of the public, but that the representative
must "do what is best" for the public by putting "interests"
ahead of "desires" when the two conflict or when "desires" are
not evident (Pitkin 1967,162-64). Additionally, this view
assumes that the superior position of representatives provides
them with greater insight into the "true" interests of their
constituents (Pitkin 1967; Pennock 1979, 323).
Thus, those who argue for responsiveness to needs
typically assert that the primary obligation of the representa-
tive is to respond to the objective interests and needs of those
represented, especially if the preferences of those represented
are ill-informed or not immediately evident.
71/J-PART, January 1992
Bureaucratic Responsiveness

While the possibility of legislators acting as Burkean

"trustees" (rather than instructed delegates) some or all of. the
time is widely acknowledged and accepted in democratic
theory, analysts evidence greater ambivalence about allowing
bureaucrats such a role. Yet the strain between competencies of
representatives and those represented in many ways is most
pronounced in the case of bureaucratic representatives.
Bureaucrats are selected, trained, and rewarded on the basis of
substantive expertise or "wisdom"; how much and under what
circumstances should they defer to the public or to elected
officials in policy making?

Sharp (1981, 34) has raised this question in regard to one

type of responsiveness, noting that "perhaps . . . responsive-
ness does not consist of a correspondence between policy
maker priorities and those of the public, but rather a willing-
ness to strike some balance between professional standards
and values and community priorities." Similarly, Ingraham and
Ban (1988) look at control by elected officials (exercised
through political appointees) and argue that "neither political
control nor career expertise and objectivity are superior; both
are simply component parts of a necessary process."

The problem for theorists remains that genuine wisdom

and objectivity on the part of bureaucrats may be absent or
consistently inferior to that of the public or of elected officials;
bureaucrats may act simply according to whim or personal
preference under the guise of neutral competence or wisdom.
For example, analysts have noted a tendency of professionals
to inflate the value of their training and to define value-laden
issues as narrow matters to be decided by experts (Stone 1980).
Professionalism and superior objectivity then provide a con-
venient rationalization for ignoring outside opinion (Greene
1982). Analysts encountering bureaucratic preferences at odds
with those of the public face the problem of differentiating
between genuine responsiveness to needs and rationalizations.

Other problems arise due to the various forms responsive-

ness can take. Responsiveness has been operationalized by
various researchers as opinion concurrence between represen-
tatives and the designated public, procedural openness, agenda
setting, advocacy of or support for specific policies during the
decision making stage, policy enactments, policy implementa-
tion, and policy impacts. Schumaker (1975) categorizes the
basic forms of responsiveness as (1) access responsiveness, (2)
agenda responsiveness, (3) policy responsiveness, (4) output
responsiveness, and (5) impact responsiveness.

72/J-PART, January 1992

 Bureaucratic Responsiveness

Many of the problems that arise in operationalizing each

type of responsiveness have been discussed elsewhere.* The
difficulties are more pronounced as the researcher's attention
moves from opinion concurrence to policy impacts. Addition-
ally, problems of operationalizing each type of responsiveness
are more complex in the bureaucratic setting than in the legis-
lative setting. Thus, if the test of responsiveness is concurrence
on policy agendas, the researcher must decide if administra-
tors' agenda preferences should match those of citizens or of
elected officials.

Is the administrator's opinion regarding the matter salient

to operationalizing the concept? What if the administrator's
expertise dictates an agenda different from that of the public or
of elected officials? Should impact responsiveness be assessed
in terms of substantive policy impacts (e.g., improved health
care) or in terms of citizen satisfaction (e.g., approval of the
health delivery system)? As Gruber (1987), Mann (1976), and
others have illustrated, professional judgments of what is
needed or wanted in dealing with a particular policy problem
may conflict with citizen preferences, so how the concept is
operationalized may affect evaluations of administration
responsiveness.

STUDIES TOUCHING ON RESPONSIVENESS

As noted earlier, a considerable amount of theoretical and

empirical work that touches on or has implications for bureau-
cratic responsiveness does exist, though much of it does not
focus explicitly on bureaucratic responsiveness. The following
discussion delineates the models underlying much of that
research and uses examples from various studies to illustrate
problems associated with this field of research.

Models and Focus of Research

Most theorizing and empirical research tends to empha-

size one or another model of bureaucratic democracy to the
exclusion of others. Until fairly recently, the dominant model
of responsiveness in empirical research focused on responses
to the wishes or demands of the public in general or some par-
ticular segments of the public (Mladenka 1981), while ignoring
both the traditional public administration emphasis on respon-
siveness to elected representatives of the public and the per-
spective that emphasizes responsiveness to the interests of the
«See Pennock 0952) for discussion of s t a t e Utilizing public choice approaches, this research defines
the problem of demands and Kendall responsiveness in terms of the capacity to satisfy the prefer-
and Carey 0968) for discussion of the ences of citizens" (Ostrom 1975, 275), especially those "who are
intensity issue. dependent upon the institution."

73/J-PART, January 1992

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

This approach focuses exclusively on the link between

bureaucratic agencies and their clientele, applying a "consumer
model" to bureaucratic responsiveness. Sharp (1981,34-35)
delineates the components of the model by noting that the
approach

treats responsiveness in the public policy realm in a manner similar to

responsiveness in the marketing realm. Citizens are viewed as con-
sumers of policy outputs, and public officials are expected to base
their actions on citizen evaluation of those outputs, in much the same
way that the marketplace supposedly provides signals to producers of
any product.... Under the consumer model, responsiveness had to
do with the satisfaction of citizen preferences or demands, or at least
with the relationship between citizen preferences/demands and
policymaker priorities, beliefs, or actions.

However appealing and influential this perspective has

been, it has been justifiably criticized for applying an overly
narrow definition of the public even within the public choice
framework, and, more broadly, for ignoring

competing perspectives on the appropriate role of public organiza-

tions in a democratic society even though no compelling reasons are
offered as to why we ought to favor the public preference position
and reject the others (Mladenka 1981,145).

As noted earlier, a competing perspective, more in tune with

dominant orientations in public administration theory, is evi-
dent in recent attempts to develop a general theory of institu-
tions through a focus, in part, on congressional control of
bureaucracy and principal/agent relationships in the bureau-
cratic context

These latter works tend to apply a "neutral executor"

model of bureaucratic responsiveness that demands bureau-
cratic responsiveness to elected officials. Analysts working
within this framework assume, implicitly and sometimes
explicitly, that democratic control of bureaucracy is to be
exerted through elected officials. Considerable disagreement is
evident among such analysts as to which elected officials
should and do exert control, and recent analyses have done
more to acknowledge the possible existence of alternative per-
spectives on bureaucratic responsiveness. Nonetheless, much of
this literature continues to assume that democracy can be
served only by bureaucratic subservience to the demands of
elected officials (or some specific subset of elected officials).

An alternative model that has been largely ignored by

rational theory and public choice theory alike is one that
allows for an independent role for bureaucracy. Such a model
may be fashioned on views of bureaucrats acting as

74/J-PART, January 1992


'Much of the following discussion is
based on Moe's (1987) useful
summary and critique.
Bureaucratic Responsiveness
representatives of the state or responding to either elected
officials or the public at the independence end of the mandate-
independence continuum. Sharp's "professional responsibility"
model (1981,34), which equates responsiveness with "action
based on professional judgements of need," would fit in here.
So would Ingraham and Ban's "public service" model (1988,
13), which equates'responsiveness with a "dialogue" between
bureaucrats and their controllers "carried out with the intent of
achieving some larger, broader public good." Similarly,
administrative statesmen, bureaucratic pluralists, and New
Public Administration "change agents" alike might all be seen
as operating within this model; the crucial factor is that all
presume an independent role for the bureaucracy, allowing it
to be something other than completely subservient to either
elected officials' or the publics' wishes.
Relevant Research
Research touching on issues of bureaucratic responsive-
ness has arisen in a variety of contexts and has adopted a wide
array of substantive fod. As noted earlier, while a small body
of research has focused explicitly on general issues of bureau-
cratic responsiveness, recent research having the broadest
implications for responsiveness raises the question indirectly
by focusing on "controlling" or "taming" bureaucracy (Gruber
1987; Gormley 1989).
Additionally, a variety of more specific topics provide
analyses of particular elements or aspects of bureaucratic
responsiveness. For example, research on urban service dis-
tribution and alternative service-delivery systems addresses the
link between services provided and neighborhood or group
needs or wishes (Mladenka 1981; Antunes and Plumlee 1977;
Boyle and Jacobs 1982). Analysts interested in questions of
representative bureaucracy have focused on links between
"passive" representation of groups in bureaucracy and "active"
representation, or responsiveness to the group interest, in
policy making (Thompson 1976; Meier et al. 1991). Similarly,
those looking at "public encounters" with bureaucracy continue
to focus on the bureaucracy's responsiveness to individuals or
specific groups (Katz et al. 1975; Goodsell 1981).
More recently, a substantial body of work has developed
extending positive theory to bureaucratic behavior, especially
regarding bureaucratic responsiveness to political control. As
part of an attempt to create a "general theory of political
institutions," one strand of research purports to have estab-
lished a new theory of "congressional dominance" of the
bureaucracy.5 Analysts working within this framework
75/J-PART, January 1992
Bureaucratic Responsiveness

essentially assert that Congress successfully uses a variety of

rewards and sanctions to control the bureaucracy. This per-
spective assumes that the particular tools utilized and the
specific actors within Congress who employ them are a func-
tion of the internal decision processes of Congress and of
legislators' overriding concern with reelection (Moe 1987).
Working within this framework, analysts demonstrate why
congressional supervision often takes the form of "fire alarm"
oversight rather than "police patrol" (McCubbins and Schwartz
1984), and why Congress's apparent lack of concern with over-
sight can actually be a sign mat this particular form of control
is very effective.

Principal-agent analysis focuses on the problems of

control inherent in any structures that use self-interested
individuals as agents for other self-interested individuals
(Bendor 1990, Levinthal 1988). As delineated by Bendor (1990),
true principal-agent analyses assume that the agent has some
information that is not available to the principal and that self-
interest encourages the agent to exploit this advantage. This
focuses attention on creating and manipulating incentives to
compel or persuade the agent to act in the principal's interest.
Any number of empirical analyses have attempted to analyze
administrative (especially regulatory) agencies' actions within
the context of principal-agent relations by searching for evi-
dence of links between bureaucratic actions and the prefer-
ences of elected officials (see, e.g., Chubb 1985; Moe 1982;
Weingast and Moran 1983; Wood 1988; Scholtz and Wei 1986).
Both formal theory and empirical analyses employing this
approach can be seen as complementing the traditional "over-
head democracy" perspective on the relationship between the
bureaucracy and the larger political system (Eisner and Meier
1990).

Any number of other studies raise questions relevant to

bureaucratic responsiveness, but the studies noted above pro-
vide evidence of common problems that arise when this topic
is addressed. Consequently, the following brief discussion will
utilize examples from this research to demonstrate problems
stemming from theoretical and conceptual ambiguity regarding
the topic and from inattention to competing models of
responsiveness.

THEORETICAL, CONCEPTUAL,
AND OPERATIONAL PROBLEMS

Of recent writers, Gruber (1987) probably has done the

most to explore the broader theoretical underpinnings of
efforts to "control" the bureaucracy through democratic

76/J-PART, January 1992

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

mechanisms. Conceptualizing democratic control (p. 12) as

legal constraint imposed by a democratic political actor (e.g.,
citizens "alone or in groups," elected legislators, or executives),
she explores a broad array of strategies to control bureaucracy
and delineates the connections between specific strategies and
alternative views of democracy. In so doing, she demonstrates
an unusual sensitivity to the ways in which preferences for
different types of controls may be traced to differing beliefs
about such matters as the "relative capabilities of the rulers vs.
the ruled" and the relative value of a government oriented
toward substantive ends versus one designed to safeguard
individual liberty. Gormley (1989) takes a similar, though less
theoretically oriented, tack but examines a somewhat larger
number of control mechanisms and draws a distinction
between controls exerted by citizens and those wielded by
elected officials.

While both analysts appear to be most concerned with the

policy implications of their arguments, their analyses also
might be expected to shed light on general issues of bureau-
cratic responsiveness. However, even in these broad-ranging
analyses, neither author completely accepts the full range of
meanings of either control or responsiveness, and neither pays
any sustained attention to the theoretical complexities involved
in deciding who should control the bureaucracy and what
form control should take.

Gruber, for example, slights public service models of

bureaucratic activity. While she allows for some fairly
autonomous activity on her democratic constraint graph (p. 18)
and acknowledges theoretical arguments in support of even
greater bureaucratic autonomy consistent with democracy
(pp. 40-42), she never fully accepts such independent activity
on the part of bureaucracy as being democratic. While her
position on this may be due, in part, to her concern with
democratic control of bureaucracy rather than bureaucratic
responsiveness per se, her focus on control cannot account
fully for her lack of support for a more independent
bureaucracy.

Even if democratic control is defined as constraint

imposed by citizens or elected officials, one might still argue
that such control is exercised through adoption, support, and
maintenance of a particular governmental system of multiple
and varied competencies and responsibilities; of divergent
organizational incentives and motivators producing differing
institutional perspectives; and of countless checks and balances
governing relationships between the public, elected representa-
tives, and bureaucracy. Hence, just as the judiciary operates

77/J-PART, January 1992


'Gruber (1987) considers the existence
of various arguments in favor of pub-
lic service models of bureaucracy (pp.
30-43), but does not give these argu-
ments much credence and overlooks
entirely recent contributions by anal-
ysts such as Burke (1989) and Rohr
0986).
7
As she notes (p. 32), "The issue is not
merely the proper distribution of
power between the rulers and the
ruled, but also the relationship be-
tween the rulers and the ruled to-
gether on the one hand and the
bureaucrats on the other."
"Because of her assumption that bu-
reaucrats are superior only in regard
to narrow, specialized expertise,
Gruber dismisses arguments in favor
of bureaucratic wisdom because of
their "inconsistencies" (p. 43), even
though she finds them important em-
pirically. Yet many, if not most, such
arguments posit a very different role
and function for bureaucracy and bu-
reaucrats than that delineated by
Gruber. See, for example. Storing
(1980); Rohr (1986); or Burke (1989).
Going back further, look at Waldo's
0948) call for an administrative class
"resembling Plato's Guardian Class"
or Appleby's notion (1965, 338) of
the role of bureaucracy as "an organ
responding to such [multiple, contra-
dictory] demands, reconciling them,
and in the course of response injecting
considerations of prudence, perspec-
tive, and principle, including regard
for other popular demands and
aspirations than those expressed in
the chorus of the moment"
Bureaucratic Responsiveness
within a different context of control, many elements of the
existing system suggest that the bureaucracy was designed and
intended to do more than respond blindly to immediate, direct
orders from any and all possible combinations of citizens and
elected officials.
Despite such evidence and additional widespread
evidence of substantial, broad delegations of authority to
bureaucracy by citizens and elected officials, Gruber ultimately
dismisses such models of control. Her response appears to be
based more on her own beliefs about the relative capabilities of
the rulers and the ruled than on theoretical weaknesses in pub-
lic service models of bureaucracy.6 While she acknowledges
that willingness to support bureaucratic autonomy is tied to
beliefs about the relative capabilities of bureaucrats, citizens,
and elected officials; that the problem is more difficult in
regard to bureaucracy,-7 and that citizens are not always
capable of wise decision making, her own preferences are
evident in her argument that only elected officials are capable
of wisdom.
Thus, she argues (p. 41), 'Tf leadership, leisure, and
distance from the daily wants of the populace are the
requisites for effective and responsible decision making, then
elected leaders should be favorably equipped," while "the
narrow, specialized view of the bureaucrat is a liability." By
assuming that bureaucrats are at best narrow, specialized
experts and by disregarding the possibility that the structure,
design, or motivational incentives of the bureaucracy might
provide for more objective assessment of the public interest
than is likely to be evident among those motivated primarily
by concern for reelection, Gruber rules out the possibility of
bureaucratic wisdom. In so doing, she rejects a long-standing
tradition in public administration theory that focuses upon the
unique role of bureaucracy and on the unique capabilities of
bureaucrats in the decision-making process.8 She is then faced
with the difficult problem of explaining why so many of her
interview subjects adopt such an "undemocratic" public service
model in defining their own roles in the governmental system.
Where Gruber shows a clear preference for controls by
citizens and elected officials, Gormley shows a clearer prefer-
ence for significant amounts of bureaucratic discretion, coupled
with direct citizen involvement in bureaucracy. Though
Gormley provides an insightful analysis of alternative controls,
his arguments are much less theoretical than are Gruber's and
his personal preferences, clear in the terminology and sub-
stance of his arguments, more strongly influence his analysis.
Thus, for example, he asserts that citizen controls are
78/J-PART, January 1992

'Gonnley (1989) addresses this
question in linking controls with
bureaucratic expertise, but tips the
scales heavily, without solid theo-
retical support in favor of bureau-
cratic dominance. Gruber, on the other
hand, is unwilling to accept mere
concurrence as control, refusing to
allow responsiveness to mean any-
thing other than "reaction." In the
process, she makes a number of
strained and inconsistent arguments
as to whether concurrence can ever
demonstrate control (see, for example,
pp. 13 and 24).
"For example, Meier (1975) and
Gonnley et al. (1983) look at top-level
administrators; Brown (1981) and
Muir (1977) look at street-level
bureaucrats.
Bureaucratic Responsiveness
"catalytic" to bureaucracy, while controls from political officials
are "coercive" and that "muscles" (controls exerted by elected
officials) may promote accountability, but "prayers [controls
exerted by citizens] are normally superior to muscles" (p. 16).
In contrast to Gruber, Gormley invariably comes down on
the side of bureaucratic autonomy whenever the values and
perspectives of elected officials conflict with those of a skilled
bureaucracy. Fbr example, he argues most strongly against the
use of muscles when bureaucratic skill and policy complexity
are high "because the bureaucracy's masters may not know
what they are doing" (p. 23), and notes that legislators and
judges demonstrate "considerable hubris" in "addressing
complex issues" (p. 27).
Similarly, he argues (p. 230) that we are too accepting of
"the legitimacy of political control without asking hard ques-
tions about the representativeness of individual legislators" or
judges but he seems to feel that prayers invariably "promote
democracy" (p. 231) and that a skilled bureaucracy enjoying
high support can always be trusted to "do the right thing,"
including determining for itself which prayers are legitimate
(p. 24). Yet again, then, one finds an analysis of issues of
control or responsiveness to be slanted by the author's prefer-
ences for some model or models of responsiveness over the
alternatives.
Gruber, Gonnley, those analysts focusing on congressional
dominance of the bureaucracy, and many others also fail to
explore the complexities of conflicting views as to whom and
to what bureaucratic responsiveness is owed, as well as the
form responsiveness should take. Even if the emphasis begins
with the question of control over bureaucracy, questions
inevitably arise as to who should control whom. Positive
theorists and legislative dominance scholars now raise what
are old arguments in public administration as to whether the
president or Congress should dominate the bureaucracy, or
whether congressional control is exerted most appropriately by
committees or by Congress as a whole (see, for example, the
Wood and Cook exchange, 1989).
Analysts who choose to focus on opinion concurrence as
an indicator of responsiveness need to consider (but rarely do)
which values or opinions are to be considered, how variations
in knowledge or intensity are to be handled, and how much
value concurrence is necessary to demonstrate either respon-
siveness or control.' Some scholars have looked at the opinions
of top-level administrators, while others have been concerned
with street-level bureaucrats.10 Dsagreement continues as to
79/J-PART, January 1992

"Gormley et aL (1983) look at citizen
activists; Meier and Nigro (1976) at
general public opinion; Mann (1976)
at school boards; Fiorina (1981) at
specific congressional committees; and
Barke and Riker (1982) at congres-
sional intent embodied in formal
policy.
Bureaucratic Responsiveness
whether those opinions should be linked to the opinions of
specific segments of the community, such as citizen activists; to
general public opinion; or to the opinions of all or specific
subgroups of elected officials.11 Once again, it is unusual for
analysts exploring any specific linkage to acknowledge the
potential conflicts between one dyadic relationship and another
on the issue of democratic responsiveness/control.
Analysts who focus on policies or impacts as indicators of
either control or responsiveness face even greater difficulties
conceptualizing and operationalizing variables. First,
researchers encounter difficulties in identifying a policy that
can be linked unambiguously to a group's or a population's
interests or wishes. This may not be a problem where survey
data indicate clear public support for a specific policy, but few
researchers are fortunate enough to obtain such data. Frequent-
ly, researchers are faced with the hazardous undertaking of
inferring a group interest as well as a policy to satisfy it
(Saltzstein 1979). In such cases, critics can always contend that
a different policy or even a different measure of the same
policy would indicate something entirely different in regard to
bureaucratic responsiveness. Moe (1987, 486), for example,
argues that the possible effectiveness of fire-alarm oversight, as
well as the motivations and incentives that lead to its use,
mean that it "may well be limited precisely to the short term,
superficial, and ad hoc"; in fact, it may well militate against
fundamental bureaucratic reforms (i.e., meaningful control or
responsiveness).
In addition, the output or impact selected by the
researcher must be something over which the bureaucracy
reasonably might be expected to have some control. This diffi-
culty has plagued research on service distribution from the
start, when the inclination was to use expenditures or deploy-
ment of capital facilities as indicators of bureaucratic policy.
Only recently has that tendency been criticized on the grounds
that such measures may more accurately reflect legal and eco-
nomic constraints developed over a considerable period of
time than current policies and decisions willfully adopted by
bureaucrats (Boyle and Jacobs 1982; Koehler and Wrightson
1989).
Similarly, empirical tests of principal-agent notions have
been criticized for relying on budget variables as indicators of
congressional control, despite the fact that budget control is
shared by the president and Congress. Many other bureau-
cratic outputs are determined by elected officials working with
bureaucrats and are not the exclusive domain of either actor.
Consequently, considerable disagreement may exist among
80/J-PART, January 1992
Bureaucratic Responsiveness

researchers as to whether a given situation provides evidence

of bureaucratic responsiveness.

In addition to the extensive operationalization problems

that lead to contradictory conclusions, mere is also conflict
because analysts disagree about the appropriate level of
analysis. Most researchers in the areas mentioned previously
simply accept some particular level of "appropriate inclusion."
Those interested in opinion concurrence in school administra-
tion examine citizen opinion within the school district, analysts
of service distribution look primarily at intracity distribution,
and studies of public encounters may examine the individual
agency's responses to client request (Ziegler et al. 1983;
Hasenfeld and Steinmetz 1981). Critical analysts in virtually
every case contend that the level of analysis selected may mask
more pervasive system or societal unresponsiveness (Meier,
Stewart, and England 1991).

Thus, critics of public choice service-delivery strategies

argue that increasing intrajurisdictional homogeneity may
indeed enhance responsiveness within that jurisdiction, but
only at the cost of decreased responsiveness across juris-
dictions (Miller 1981). Similarly, Moe (1987, 483) notes that the
emphasis of congressional dominance theorists on the in-
fluence of single committees or subcommittees on an individ-
ual agency ignores the fact "that much of what committees
want and pursue is not embodied in congressional policy
enactments and often would not be ratified if the full body
were to vote." Just as bureaucratic responsiveness to fire alarm
oversight may impede responsiveness to broader concerns,
responsiveness to congressional committee preferences may
impede responsiveness to "larger collective goals of the legisla-
ture" (Moe 1987, 483). Yet analysts persist in assuming, often
with little theoretical justification, that whichever population
they choose to emphasize is the one that should control or
respond to control.

Critics also charge that the extent of bureaucratic respon-

siveness in any given community may be overestimated by
focusing only on the part played by the bureaucracy. If respon-
siveness is a function both of bureaucratic and political forces,
is it valid to assess bureaucratic responsiveness according to
the actions of the bureaucracy only, or should that assessment
address the contributions of the bureaucracy to overall levels
of responsiveness?

For example, should one conclude that an agency that

provides prompt, thorough investigation of citizen complaints
is responsive, even if administrators know that no money is

81 //-PART, January 1992

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

available to correct the problems and make no effort to obtain

additional funds (Mladenka 1981; Bachelor 1983)? Or, as Sharp
(1981) asks in regard to access responsiveness, "Does access
responsiveness mean that all elements of the local govern-
mental system are working together to find out about citizen
concerns?"

This question takes us back once again to a major problem

with existing research on responsiveness: the lack of integra-
tion of alternative models of responsiveness. Even research that
addresses specifically the subject of bureaucratic responsive-
ness has minimized or ignored at least one of the possible
approaches to responsiveness. Thus, studies such as those by
Mann (1976), Tucker .and Ziegler (1980), and Gormley et al.
(1983) all downplay the role of responsiveness to elected
officials. The urban service-distribution literature explores
political influences almost entirely in terms of the links
between electoral votes and bureaucratic outputs in a narrow
range of policy arenas, despite other research demonstrating
links between minority and female representation in elective
office and bureaucratic outcomes (Eisinger 1982; Saltzstein
1989; Browning et al. 1984; Meier and England 1984) or the
influence of overhead controls in other policy areas. Recent
works on legislative dominance or principal-agent relationships
are often blatant in their disregard for alternative models—
some omit entirely any consideration of alternative controllers
(e.g., Weingast and Moran 1983), while others treat one institu-
tion, typically the one the author understands the least (Bendor
1990), as a completely passive actor in the relationship. Such
analysts have been reluctant to acknowledge that bureaucracy
might be something other than an agent of elected officials,
that it might sometimes be an agent of the public or even, at
other times, a principal in its own right

CONCLUSIONS

The reality of bureaucratic life is that all the models

discussed here are valid, theoretically defensible models of the
bureaucratic component of a democratic system. Each model
has been evident in varying degrees and fashion in the struc-
ture and design of public bureaucracies as they have evolved
over time; in administrative theory and research; and in the
training and socialization of public administrators. Individual
bureaucrats, elected officials, and members of the public alike
typically believe, at least implicitly, in at least one or another
of these models and act accordingly but must interact with
others who may accept alternative models. For example, con-
flicting views of how the bureaucracy is to meet its democratic
obligations for responsiveness can be compounded by

82/J-PART, January 1992

Bureaucratic Responsiveness

contradictory views regarding the importance of responsive-

ness relative to other democratic values and by contradictory
views on questions of appropriate inclusion or the forms
responsiveness must take. The resulting pursuit of responsive-
ness is likely to be rather chaotic, with some actors ignoring
the question entirely while advocates of one or another
approach argue past each other and accuse each other of bad
faith.

Researchers face a difficult task in making sense of the

multiple, simultaneous interactions between bureaucrats and
other actors. Isolating and identifying ideas, actions, or out-
comes that might appropriately be considered "responsive" and
assessing degrees of responsiveness in bureaucracy are even
more difficult tasks. Yet that job is even harder if one also
succumbs to the desire to enshrine a preferred model of a
democratic bureaucracy as the only appropriate model.

Just as the consumer models for such a long time assumed

that bureaucratic responsiveness required direct responses to
citizen demands, political control models now often assume
that responsiveness requires response to the preferences of
elected officials. Underlying normative preferences lead
analysts using either model to ignore the other model, as well
as public service models, and inevitably bias the research in
subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

The recent emphasis on consumer models and neutral

executor models (e.g., political control models) of bureaucratic
responsiveness is especially troublesome because so many of
the assumptions of these models are poor fits for bureaucrats
who see themselves as public servants with independent repre-
sentational responsibilities. Analyses of political control of
bureaucracy have been hindered further by their lack of atten-
tion to earlier work on bureaucratic responsiveness. As a con-
sequence, researchers have had to stumble through many of
the same theoretical, conceptual, and operational problems
encountered in earlier research on bureaucratic responsiveness.

For example, analysts have had to acknowledge that many

of the assumptions of true principal-agent models (e.g., single
principals, precommitment to rewards or sanctions, or agent
behavior based on self-interest) do not provide an accurate
depiction of principal-agent relations in our system and hence
often find little empirical support (Bendor 1990; Levinthal 1988;
March and Olsen 1989). Consequently, analysts have adopted
all sorts of variants on the model, many of which abuse the
approach or employ only the terminology of principal-agent
relationships. Extreme variants (such as the legislative

83/J-PART, January 1992


'*We know, for example, that some
agencies appear to attract individuals
with particular views on responsive-
ness and that particular types of
communities select administrators
adopting particular approaches to
administration (Wilson 1969; Romzek
and Hendriks 1982; Henderson 1975);
much more needs to be understood
about the interactive influences of
community, organization, and indi-
vidual bureaucrats on responsiveness.
Bureaucratic Responsiveness
dominance approach) have been subjected to extensive
criticism, for example, for such faults as inadequately or
improperly conceptualizing control, overstating both the
desirability and reality of congressional control of bureaucracy
through radically under-specified models, and ignoring
relevant theory and research on public bureaucracy (Moe 1987;
Cook and Wood 1989; Eisner and Meier 1990).
Scholars using formal models have been forced to try to
model alternative motivations in light of widespread adoption
by bureaucrats of political or public service roles (Aberbach
and Rockman 1981; Fleischmann and Pierannunzi 1990;
Schmidt and Posner 1986; Gruber 1987). Meanwhile, scholars
seeking to provide empirical tests of principal-agent relations
involving bureaucracy have been forced to debate old issues
about how to operationalize presidential or legislative will (see
Moe 1987, 482-84; Cook and Wood 1989, 968); how to recog-
nize "responsive" bureaucratic behavior in the absence of an
explicit stimulus or otherwise; how to distinguish strategic
from sincere behavior; how to assess shared responsibilities
and action; how to account for both organizational and human
influences on outcomes (Hammond 1986); and how to control
for rival explanations while maintaining some modicum of
simplicity and rigor.
In the process of dealing with these questions, scholars
have begun to show signs of acknowledging the complexity of
the theoretical issues at stake by adopting more sophisticated
models, sometimes involving nested games (e.g., Schlotz 1991),
and by demonstrating a heightened awareness and under-
standing of the differences between institutions. Scholars also
need to give additional attention to questions of to what and to
whom bureaucrats respond, and under what circumstances.
Thus, much more could be done to examine the tradeoffs
that result from bureaucrats' attempts to respond to multiple
demands. What factors, internal and external to the agency, are
likely to stimulate response to one set of demands over
another? Under what circumstances are bureaucrats likely to
respond to any given set of demands or to objective needs?
How do various factors influencing bureaucratic responsive-
ness interact with one another?12 Finally, what difference does
responsiveness in its varied forms make in terms of citizen
satisfaction with or support for government? The utility of
research on such theoretically significant questions can only be
enhanced by increased awareness of the full range of models
of bureaucratic democracy and by renewed attention to the
conceptual subtleties of responsiveness.
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