Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect: Bureaucratic Responses to Presidential Control During the Reagan Administration

The behavior of bureaucrats i of considerable concern in a polity in which, on one hand, career civil servants have significant influence over policy outcomes but, on the other hand, there is also concern about bureaucratic responsiveness to elected officials--the president in particular. Career civil servants have been predominantly portrayed as resistant to their political superiors, although some literature stresses the more cooperative aspects of their behavior. The argument set forth is that bureaucratic behavior is not as easily characterized as these two models-the resistant and the cooperative-suggest. Instead, the extent of resistance varies, depending on agency context. This article presents five organizational features that appear to be significant in promoting or inhibiting resistance: ideology; dominant agency profession; agency esprit; agency history; and careerist confidence. The research is based on case studies of two federal agencies during the Reagan years-the Civil Rights Division and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The analysis employs a modified version of Albert 0. Hirschman's concepts of exit, voice, and loyalty, and an additional concept of neglect, to examine bureaucratic responses to the Reagan administration's agenda of policy change. The political science literature is replete with stereotypical images of the bureaucracy, images that are also shared by politicians and the general public. Bureaucrats are viewed as resistant to change and overly concerned with preserving their turf and maximizing their budgets. Nevertheless, the bureaucracy is the workhouse of government, and citizens rely on it to build the roads, safeguard the air and water, and protect individual rights (Huddleston 1987). Consequently, examining the extent to which career civil servants are cooperative with, or resistant to, the president addresses the concern of how responsive nonelected officials are to elected ones. The author wishes to thank the civil servants interviewed for this study for their cooperation and to thank Marty Gilens and Mina Silberberg for their helpful comments. An earlier version of this artide was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 1990. I-PART, 2(1992):1:29-62 29/Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory This content downloaded from 152.14. 136.96 on Tue, 2 Apr 2013 14:57:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bureaucratic Responses to Presidential Control The Reagan years provide a unique opportunity to test the extent to which some of the popular images of the bureaucracy are borne out by empirical reality. The Reagan presidency has become almost legendary for its concentrated assault on the bureaucracy and for its use of what Richard Nathan has dubbed the "administrative presidency strategy"--a strategy designed to bring federal agencies, and the career civil servants who work in them, more directly under the control of the presidency. The components of this strategy have been well documented (Nathan 1983; Benda and Levine 1988; West and Cooper 1985; Rubin 1985; Lynn 1984; Goldenberg 1984; Waterman 1989). The administrative presidency strategy applied by the Reagan administration consisted primarily of ideologically based political appointments, budget cuts, and personnel cuts, and centralization of regulatory review in Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The bureaucracy's response to the Reagan administration's attempt to control it has received less attention but warrants closer scrutiny if one is to gain a better understanding of bureaucratic resistance to and cooperation with political principals under conditions where the conventional wisdom would anticipate resistance (but see Lowery and Rusbult 1986). One would expect bureaucrats to be less than accepting of presidential efforts at control for a number of reasons. These reasons include clashing ideologies between liberal bureaucrats and a conservative administration (Aberbach and Rockman 1976); policy disagreement (Stehr 1989); bureaucratic distaste for and resistance to change (Heclo 1977; Pious 1979; Page and Petracca 1983); bureaucratic protection of budgets and turf (Wildavsky 1984; Niskanen 1971; Heclo 1977); and bureaucratic preferences for autonomy and discretion (Mosher 1968; Pious 1979). In short, given a combination of the "anti-bureaucratic" nature of the Reagan administration, the significant departure of its policy initiatives from the status quo, and the conventional wisdom about bureaucratic behavior, there is ample reason to expect resistance to presidential directives from the Reagan administration. The conventional wisdom, however, is not unanimous on this subject, and there are also reasons to expect civil servants to cooperate with their political principals in the presidential branch. Francis Rourke is among those scholars who have found evidence of cooperation. He notes (1987, 219) that fear of "bureaucratic usurpation of power" from the presidency exists among politicians and political scientists "in spite of the fact that genuine cases of bureaucratic challenges to presidential authority since the war have been a rare occurrence. " James Q. Wilson (1989, 275) has observed the same phenomenon, 30/J-PART, January 1992 This content downloaded from 152.14. 136.96 on Tue, 2 Apr 2013 14:57:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bureaucratic Responses to Presidential Control writing that 'What is surprising is not that bureaucrats sometimes can defy the President but that they support his programs as much as they do. " A civil service more cooperative than resistant could result from professional norms encouraging behavior more closely identified with a British model of the "yes, minister" variety and viewing the job of careerists as one of adapting to whomever their political bosses may be. This model, which harkens back to the politics/administration dichotomy, has been given a variety of labels, including "passive extension of the presidency" (Goldenberg 1984), "neutral competence" (Kaufman 1956; Ingraham and Ban 1986), "overhead democracy" (Redford 1969), and "formal" (Peters 1988). In short, one body of literature portrays bureaucrats in a way that leads to the expectation of resistance, while the other branch suggests more cooperative behavior. The argument here challenges both assertions as being overly simplistic. It moves beyond this debate by focusing on the range of resistant and cooperative behaviors actually engaged in by bureaucrats, as well as on the factors contributing to or inhibiting cooperation and resistance. The bureaucratic world is neither outright intransigence nor blind loyalty. Instead, it is nuanced in two important respects. The first is that the dependent variable-bureaucratic behavior in response to presidential control efforts-is itself nuanced. "Resistance" and "cooperation" are overly broad concepts that differ not just in degree but in kind. They also manifest themselves in different ways that have different consequences for the output of the bureaucracy and different implications about responsiveness and insubordination. A modified version of Albert 0. Hirschman's categories of exit, voice, and loyalty can be used to delineate, with greater clarity than in previous research, these differing manifestations of cooperation and resistance. The argument set forth is that because all resistance is not alike and all cooperation is not alike, identifying the dimensions of these concepts is critical to understanding bureaucratic behavior. The second nuance that has been neglected in the bureaucratic-politics literature is that of agency context (but see Stehr 1989). The argument here is that bureaucratic behavior (whether it leans toward resistance or cooperation) is not constant across agencies but varies with organizational context. In short, faced with the same conditions that conventional wisdom predicts would lead to resistance (i.e., the application of the administrative presidency strategy to control the 31/J-PART, January 1992 This content downloaded from 152.14.136.96 on Tue, 2 Apr 2013 14:57:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bureaucratic Responses to Presidential Control bureaucracy), bureaucrats in different agencies exhibit differing degrees and types of resistant and cooperative behavior. Moreover, the source of these differences lies in the nature of the internal environment of each agency. Five organizational factors explain these differences across agencies: careerist ideology, dominant agency profession, agency esprit, agency history, and careerist confidence. The measurement and theoretical grounding of these independent variables is discussed below, following a more complete discussion of the use of Hirschman's categories as framework for coding bureaucratic reactions to the Reagan presidency. BUREAUCRATIC RESPONSE OPTIONS Career civil servants have a range of responses available to them when faced with executive redirection. This discussion explores the use of some of these options with the concepts of exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect. These provide a framework for grouping response options in a way that allows examination of the nuances of bureaucratic behavior. Exit, voice, and loyalty have come to be closely associated with the work of Albert 0. Hirschman (1970). While bureaucratic responses were not the focus of his work, a modification of his categories enables more accurate description of bureaucratic behavior, thereby bringing the dimensionality of that behavior into sharper focus. Career civil servants who decide to resist presidential directives have two options: exit and voice. Exit occurs when a civil servant resigns from his or her job and when that resignation is precipitated, at least in part, by dissatisfaction with or in response to presidential control efforts, policy changes