Maintaining the American State

Abstract

Bureaucratic agencies need sufficient capacity to implement the programs and policies delegated to them by Congress and the president. Scholars have long predicted that elected officials have sufficient incentives to build capacity across the administrative state. But the rising prevalence of government failure calls into question whether this is true.

This dissertation uses formal models, surveys of bureaucrats, and observational data to challenge this conventional wisdom. Its argument unfolds in three parts. First, it argues that the U.S. administrative state exhibits greater variation in capacity than scholars often predict. Civil servants vary in whether they report that their agency has sufficient material resources and personnel to accomplish their missions. Second, a central cause of this variation is neglect. Presidents and members of Congress lack sufficient incentives to build capacity across the administrative state. Instead, surveys of federal executives show that elected officials prioritize building capacity in agencies they expect will contribute to their reelection efforts. Third and finally, this variation has meaningful consequences for political elites and individuals. For political elites, presidents struggle to implement their policy agendas through the rulemaking process in low-capacity agencies. For individuals, the constraints caused by insufficient capacity increase the likelihood that low-capacity agencies deprive an individual of their constitutional rights to due process.

Collectively, this dissertation provides a more nuanced understanding of the role elected officials play in maintaining the administrative state and the consequences that result from neglect. Neglect—not building or deconstructing capacity—is the norm for most federal agencies. Without a means to create incentives for investment, many federal agencies will struggle to attain the capacity they need to function.