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"It has long been popular in the United States to denounce the bureaucracy and then to augment it," someone once quipped. This seminar focuses on the evolution and exercise of bureaucratic power in the United States and how it is that a democratic society has come to entrust so much policy making to officials who are at some distance removed from the electoral process. The course will focus principally on the national government and on the struggles over the years to harness bureaucratic power thr ough such strategies as government organization, patronage and the classified service, the budget, administrative procedures, judicial review, and citizen participation. The seminar will integrate historical and contemporary material, from both primary a nd secondary sources, beginning with the debates in the First Congress over the creation of the "Great Executive Departments" to the Clinton Administration's promise to reinvent government (Vice President Al Gore's "From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government That Works Better And Costs Less," U.S. Government Printing Office, September 7, 1993), and including, in between, such landmark legislation and confrontations as the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (24 State 379) the Nixon Administration's PLO T THAT FAILED (Richard Nathan, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1975), and the Clinton Administration's difficulties and delays in filling federal posts.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS GOVT Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: GOVT151 OR GOVT201 OR GOVT219 Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-19-2002
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459